


The Pull-String Puppet

by Blanca_Angelic_Loveless



Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Runaways (Comics), The Avengers (2012), The Host - Stephenie Meyer, Thor (Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Gen, Good!Loki, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers - Freeform, Loki Learns His Lesson, Loki Would Like His Free Will Back Now Please, Loki centered, Loki!feels, Multi, Other, Sad Loki!feels, The Really Nice Body Snatchers, The Souls, We Lost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 59,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless/pseuds/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A breed of peace-loving parasites has concord Earth, and few humans remain alive in hiding. Loki comes back to Earth unaware of this, he is injured and desperate, and unknowingly walks right into their hands, where a Soul (parasite) is inserted into him and takes over his body. So how does Thor react to Loki's supposed death? How does Loki feel being trapped in his head all alone? What about the poor parasite inside Loki? It's hard living with the god of Mischief screaming at you all the time from inside your own head.</p><p>--</p><p>  <i>Thor's arm fell to his side in defeat. "I have lost my brother more time than I care to count, in more ways than I care to imagine, but this, I think, is the worst. To know that his body still sits there, still breaths, and laughs, and cries, and feels, and moves, and is, to know that it could be him, but that it never will be again." He said these things to Stark, but even though I wasn't looking, I could feel his gaze on me.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inserted

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any recognizable materials.
> 
> This story is currently being beta'd. all mistakes are mine at present, but will be amended in the near enough future.

_your body_  
 _a holy sepulcher_  
 _that my spirit_  
 _rises from._  
  
 _my body_  
 _that pair of old jeans_  
 _that fits you_  
 _the best._  
  
 _our body_  
 _an unknown cosmos_  
 _where self and self_  
 _are lost_  
  
 _in the darkness_  
 _of one._

-Eric Cockrell

* * *

The Healer looked down at the body of the man lying back-up on the operation table. His name was Healer Calms the Spirit, one he’d earned through the years and carried with pride. He didn’t know the name of the unconscious man in front of him, but it hardly mattered—after the insertion, the man’s name would become irrelevant—when he woke, the inserted Soul will choose a new name for himself. He may choose the host’s, he may not.

As the Healer’s assistant, Woven Rose Petals, began the thaw sequence for the cryotank that held the Soul to be inserted, Healer Calms the Spirit tucked a lock of raven hair that had fallen into the man’s face back behind his ear. He was truly beautiful for a Human, with his shoulder length black hair, tall slender frame, high narrow cheekbones, and eyes the clearest shade of emerald Calms the Spirit has ever seen.

The man looked nothing now like the bleeding corpse he had been when he’d stumbled through their doors a few days ago. The Healer remembered how man had collapsed in front of them, bleeding from several large gashes all over his body, his arm severely broken, and nearly all of his ribs cracked, if not snapped all together. While he was perfect now, not a single scar to show for his injuries, Healer Calms the Spirit couldn’t help but wonder how it was he had gotten that way. How did a human man get such wounds in the heart of Manhattan, a city long since civilized by the Souls? Surely no Soul would commit such an act—would even find it possible to be so cruel—and no domesticated animal could have done such damage, nor were there any wild animals running loose to do so.

The only thing anyone could think would do this to the human would be another human. That was why Healer Calms the Spirit was here today, many days before he would usually insert a soul into a host body that had been wounded so. The Seekers feared that if this man could be so far into the city with wounds such as these, it may mean that there are other humans too, and if they were willing to do such damage to their own kind… Well, the Seekers didn’t want them to be a danger to the Souls. The Soul inserted today would be assigned to help them, to find the memories of this human and tell the Seekers all he had known.

“Why are you frowning, Cal?” asked Woven Rose Petals suddenly from beside him, using his shortened nickname. Her voice was soft and held much concern for him. She had every right to be, too. Souls are happy creatures and it was rare, even in these irrational human bodies, for them to feel any kind of negative emotion.

“I was only thinking on this host and what he might know,” he answered, turning to her with a smile of reassurance.

“Ah. I hope he will be able to handle the memories- the Soul, I mean,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to be the one that had to relive them, not with those wounds.”

“Speaking of the Soul,” Calms the Spirit said, “Is he ready?”

“Yes, yes. He is,” she says, turning away from the healer and back to the cryotank to flip back the safety and spin down the dial. The red light atop the small grey cylinder began to pulse, flashing faster as the seconds passed and changing colors.

Calms the Spirit picked up the scalpel and brought it to the man’s pale, exposed neck, and drew it down the host’s neck from the base of the skull to make an opening only a few inches long. After spraying on a remedy to stop the bloodflow, and with the skill accumulated from years of practice, he moved his fingers in past the neck muscles to expose the white bone of the top of the spinal column.

“Alright, he’s ready.”

Woven Rose Petals nodded as she moved into view from the other side of the operation table, the Soul gently cupped in her palms. This Soul was beautiful to the Healer, as were all the souls he’s seen. He has never seen an exposed Soul without being struck by the beauty of it. Like a living ribbon he twisted and rippled, stretching, happy to be free of the cryotank. His thin, feathery attachments, of which there were nearly a thousand, billowed softly like pale silver hair.

Woven Rose Petals moved her hands to the opening and the small glistening creature, with the instincts possessed by all Soul, weaves his way into his new home. His attachments wound tightly into place around the nerve center, some elongating and reaching deeper to where the others couldn’t see, under and up into the brain, the optic nerves, the ear canal, down into the arms and legs, weaving himself into every part of his new home, until only one small part of his body is visible.

“Wonderful,” Woven Rose Petals said, moving her hands away so that Calms the Spirit could finish his job. It was a routine matter. He cleaned the wound, applied salve that sealed the incision behind the Soul, and brushed scar-softening powder across the line left on the Soul’s neck.

As his assistant began to clean up, Calms the Spirit tucks back the lock of hair that has once more fallen out of place, and leans down to whisper in his ear, even though he knew the unconscious Soul could not hear him.

“Good Luck, little one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine._
> 
> _**also please comment!!!** _


	2. Awoken

I knew it would begin with the end, and the end would look like death to these eyes. I had been warned.

**Shit, _I think as I run, clutching my bleeding and broken arm to my chest. Years I'd been searching! Years! Of searching for the one thing in all the nine realms that would truly make me strong enough to defeat Thor and his band of idiots. Of traveling the nine realms in secret. Of research and planning and- and it was all a waste now!_**

**_About five of six years ago I had caught wind of a Midgardian legend that told of a staff with power even greater than Gungnir and Mjölnir combined, and while I am not often one to easily trust such legends, I had done some research of my own. Cloaked in magic, I had sat in the All-Father's private library (right under his own nose) for months, searching through book after book until I had found one that spoke of the staff. It was meant to be, I had read, protected by the dwarves. Naturally, the book had forgotten to mention the hellhounds inside to vault that were now chasing me through the branches of Yiggdrasil._ **

**_As I run, I can feel the hounds inching closer and closer._ **

**Too slow, Loki, run faster! _I berate myself, How the Norns must truly hate me!_**

**_Before I can muster enough of my magic – having wasted most of it breaking into the dwarves' vault –the beasts are upon me once more. One has already met its fate when it attacked my arm, and the rest seem out for revenge as they tear at my skin with their unforgiving claws and razor sharp teeth- And dear Norns, why did I even go near the dwarves again!?_ **

**_With one last scream of my agony, I do the only thing I can think to save myself: I gather all of my will power and the last drop of magic, and teleport myself to Midgard – to the only hospital in Manhattan I can remember. They will surely call S.H.I.E.L.D. but that is good, as either way someone will have to heal me._ **

**_When I stumble through sliding doors, I hear the receptionist shouting to me; I can't tell what she's saying. I've lost so much blood, my ears… My ears are ringing… Above me, there's a…there’s a man above…above? Floor…must've fallen…_ **

**_"Oh my, you poor dear!" he says frantically.  
I think I glare at him, or at least I try to glare, how dare he speak to me in such a way?_ **

**_"Oh, you’re human! Well don't you worry, dear-" The man sprays something in my face that smells… nice._ But, I'm not human… you are… wh...why’s that matter…? your eyes're… si'ver…? human eyes aren'…**

**And everything goes blank.**

As the last memory of my host fades away, I came to consciousness for the first time in this new human body. Well, I thought it was human, but my host seemed to have denied  
that in his last moment… maybe he was what the humans called a mutant, and didn't consider himself human at all? They'd told us about the different people – in case we were inserted into one – on my last planet, when I had been a… what had I been?

I could remember how we'd looked, with six hands that could bend both ways, and four hearts, too. The planet had been frozen all over; this brought up memories from my host, he had been to a planet full of ice too… Jotunheim, with blue giants who controlled the ice.

I was distracted now, with the knowledge that my host had been to another world too. I had never heard of hosts that had been to other world before, though I'd been born on my  
last planet, so who knows… I tried to find more memories of this other frozen world. Maybe this could be a new world for us to inhabit? As soon as I tried to look into the memories, though, I was hit with a wall and a vicious shout.

_You stay out of my head, whatever you are!_

"Aahhh!" I gasped in shock, my eyes shooting open wide with horror. My body shouldn't still be talking and think! I was here now, and this was me, there shouldn't be anyone else! I sat up and looked around for another person in panic. I am alone, in what I recognize from my hosts few memories of this place to be a hospital room. Before I'd even realized, people were coming into my room.

"Calm down now, you're fine," said one man, his voice scratchy and deep. What an odd language this world had – it was not my host's native language, but he understood it fluently nonetheless.

"You're safe now son, it's alright," said another. His voice was much softer then the first, though both were equally as gentle, as were the expressions on their faces. All kind-hearted and calming smiles.

I took a few deep breaths, knowing that I must be safe. Our kind don't make a habit out of lying. Ever.

"Hello, son, my name is Healer Calms the Spirit, and this is Seeker Plays the Word Games. He will be asking you questions about your hosts memories when you're feeling up to it," said the second man. “Do you know where you are?"

"My host… he called it... Midgard, but he knew a different name for it too. Um... Earth." After a second of searching, my memories seemed to be coming to me just fine. I assumed that the shouting in my head was just an echo of this human's own consciousness, now faded away.

"Yes, very good. Would you like to pick a new name for yourself? We'll be needing something better then 'son' to call you, now won't we?" he asked with a joking smile. It reminded me of my old name from my last host – I had truly liked that name – but now that I searched though this host's knowledge, I couldn't find an equivalent. I settled for a rough translation.

"My name can be Fallen Midnight Snow, I think that's close to my name on… what do we call my last planet?" I asked, knowing that Healer Calms the Spirit would know more about our names for other worlds than my host.

"Ah, yes, I suppose your host won't have that knowledge, now would he? On Earth we call your last home the Mists Planet, and we call the host species Bears. Do you have any other questions, Fallen Midnight Snow?"

"No, well, um, yes actually. Two. What are we called here?"

"We are called 'Souls' here," answered the seeker this time, who was standing on the other side of the bed from my healer. "It's strange that your host wouldn't know that, especially since he must've been running from us for so long before coming for help, Bless the poor dear's heart, he was in such terrible shape."

"And that's the second thing, Seeker Plays the Word Games. I was wondering what is you needed from this host's memories?"

The seeker smiled when he replied. "You don't have to worry about that right now, Fallen Midnight Snow, in fact I only came in here because we heard you scream. I'll leave now and Healer Calms the Spirit will bring you to my office when you are ready." With a final good bye, Seeker Plays the Word Games left the room.

It only took a few minutes for Healer Calms the Spirit to assure himself that I was able to access all of the physical abilities of my host (can I move my fingers? Yes. Can I stand? Yes. Can I walk? Yes.), though I didn't find it necessary. It's not as though they would place me in a damaged host. After the few moments more it took for me to change into new clothes, my host's having been too damaged for recovery, I was alone with the seeker in his office, sitting in a very plush leather chair on the opposite side of his neatly organized desk.

"Now, I trust everything is well, Fallen Midnight Snow?" the Seeker asked me.

"Yes. Everything is well, Seeker," I replied.

"Healer Calms the Spirit _is_ excellent at his Calling. But down to business then – just off the top of your head, is there anything you can tell us about your host? His name, perhaps? Any family?"

His name, that was simple enough. "His name is Loki Od- well, his last name was Odinson for most of his life, but for some reason he doesn't claim that last name any longer... Sorry, I can't see why. He has, well, _had_ a brother. I think they fought a lot… I am sorry Seeker, but I can't access the memories."

"It's alright, those aren't too important anymore." The seeker's relaxed expression became suddenly nervous, such a strange thing to see on the face of a Soul… "Though I should tell you, Fallen Midnight Snow, before you delve too deeply in to your host's memories, that the humans do have record of him – when you said his name, it brought back memories of my host from before we arrived…" he trailed off. His expression was... grave, my memory supplied.

"Yes, Seeker?" I prompted, afraid now to seek the answer in my own memory.

"Just be careful the memories you bring up, child, the man who used to possess that body was… a war criminal. My host was there, but let's not talk about that–" He cut himself off. "Fallen Midnight Snow?"

My host was a _war criminal?_ I had never been in a host with its own life before I inhabited it, having been born into the Mists Planet after it had been fully occupied, when the only hosts left were memory-less babies. How was I meant to deal with this? What did my host _do?_ Without thought of the things I might see I delved into my host's memories, but just like the last times I was hit with a blank – and to my absolute horror, my host began shouting at me!

_If you so much as dare to look in to my mind, I will throw upon you my most bloody of battles, and my most fowl nightmares! Know this, creature, you may have taken my body, but you shall not have my mind as well!_

"Seeker, he is here! Loki is talking to me! Yelling at me!" I shouted, grabbing my head in my hands because he still was.

 _That is right, creature, I_ am _here, and I_ am _yelling, and I well make your life a living_ Hel _for as long as you possess me!-_

"Fallen Midnight Snow! Fallen Midnight Snow, can you hear me?" Seeker Plays the Word Games was in front of me now, kneeling down so he could see my face as I looked at the ground in shock "Do you still control your host?"

"Yes, wha- Wait, can he take control of me?!"

"... There have been... cases on this world," the Seeker stated hesitantly, moving to stand and lean against his desk. "I think you will be fine for the moment, if you are still in control. However, that being said– now that I know who your host is, I think it would be best to get what little information you can and move you to a new host. A safer host. No one will blame you for skipping– that's what we call it on Earth when a Soul leaves a body before the life term is over." he clarified upon seeing my confused expression.

I thought over the Seeker's words for a moment with Loki listening intently into my thoughts as well. He was clearly too strong, he could take me over at any- well now that I thought about that, just a minute ago he was making threats, but did nothing. Even now he couldn't move his own limbs- I could very well feel him trying, trying to claw at his own face, just to claw at me! And that world I saw, Jotunheim, what if he had been to more? What if there were other planets I could help us discover, and I just abandoned the search? Plus, abandoning perfectly healthy host in the middle of a life term is never looked too fondly upon with my kind… but would they really blame me? No. I knew they wouldn't. And wouldn't Loki fade away eventually? Then there would've been no reason for abandonment…

"No, Seeker, I won't need a new host. I am fine, and Loki – he knows other worlds, I-I think if I wait he may get weaker, over time, won't he?" I felt Loki's denial at being called weak, but I also felt his relief from knowing that he was not to be… disposed of. He was smart, and knew that if I left then there would be no other Soul inserted, and that he wouldn't be allowed to walk free. I knew his thoughts now because while he could hide his past memories, his current thoughts were like an open book for me to read.

 _You're welcome,_ I thought to him.

 _Shut up,_ he replied.

"I'm not sure he would, but if you truly want to stay, no one would stop you." The Seeker smiled at me kindly. "So, he knows of other worlds?"

"Yes, from what I saw, it is very similar to the Mists Planet." And so I told him about the Jotun, and their frozen planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine_
> 
> _**also please comment!!!** _


	3. Settled

After my meeting with Seeker Plays the World Games, and another quick meeting with Healer Calms the Spirit to inform him of Loki's presence, they had a driver take me to the former Stark Industries building where I would be living in the penthouse with other Souls who's host had known Mr. Stark. Loki knew this human's name, and while he wouldn't outwardly express his interest, I did ask if Mr. Stark was a Soul now. It turned out that Tony Stark had escaped when the Souls had come, had taken as many people as he could with him, and fled to The Helicarrier – the base of a former government agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. – that was now a fortress too strong for the Souls to take down.

The Seeker told me that the Souls occupying hosts who used to know those humans were all living in Mr. Stark's tower because it was the only place left with a strong enough security system. He said that the humans still in The Helicarrier had tried on a few occasions to break in and kidnap Souls, though thankfully no attempts had been successful.

When I asked why I needed to go, The Seeker told me that Loki Odinson was the brother of Thor Odinson (oh, so that had been is name), another being still on the Helicarrier (I say "being", because like the Souls, and like Loki, Thor and a few others the Souls knew of were not human).

I'd settled in well to my new life quickly, easily making friend with the other Souls in the tower. While I could have no opinion on the hosts of my new friends, Loki certainly did. There were some host he wasn't surprised had been captured;

 _Oh look, the iron man's friend, what was it? Rhodey? And the green beast's girlfriend! The little wasp girl too. And the shrinking man is with her, now isn't that just full of sentiment?…oh and of course Selvig is here, and Jane as well? Well now where_ is _that funny little brunette so we can all be together, just waiting for Thor's rescue?!_

But still, there were some he saw as I entered the living room – a large space with a wide half circle couch near a clear glass coffee table, a huge flat screen TV hung over the fireplace, a bar off in one corner, with an archway next to it that looked to enter a kitchen. and a floor to ceiling window that showed a large balcony outside- that caught by surprise.

_Ms. Marvel? Now, I thought she was better than that… Reed Richards, what a loss, and the Human Torch too – must've been a distraction to let Susan get away. Dear Gods! Magneto!? And I thought he would've had brains enough to get away from the likes of you._

But there was one that did truly shock him…  
________________________________________

"Clint! Would you bring me a glass of water while you're in there?" Autumn Chorus, the Soul whose host used to be called Jane Foster, asked from the living room couch. She briefly glanced up from her book to smile at me as I passed through heading to the kitchen myself. "Morning, Fallen Midnight Snow," she says, and returns to her book.

"Good morning, Autumn Chorus." I smiled and continued on my way to find a meal.

"Good morning, Clint, what's left for breakfast today?" I asked, looking though the pantry.

"Not much, I was going to go shopping this evening, but another seeker called me earlier and there's a lot of work to be done…"

"No, don't worry about it," I told him, grabbing a box of mostly empty Cocoa Puffs and our last half-full gallon of milk, and began fixing myself a bowl. There was a, awful lot of us here that called the tower home, and it became quite difficult to keep the kitchen stocked for long. Souls by nature are all kind a caring and we crave society and closeness, so what was a trip to the store every few days in comparison to being surrounded by so many friendly faces? "I'll do the shopping on my way back from the day care this evening."

"Thanks dude," Clint said gratefully as he slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and grabbed Autumn Chorus' water on his way out.

 _Stop being so unbelievably perfect!_ Loki said as I sat down at the table with my bowl of cereal and started eating, _People are going to think I'm nice! And_ Clint _of all people!_

 _No one is going to think anything of you, you shouldn't even still_ be- _and if no one goes shopping, how will we all eat?_ I asked as I took a bite of my cereal.

_Speaking of eating, stop eating sugary cereals every morning, you're going to make me fat!_

I didn't know how to deal with Loki. He may not have been a physical problem – he'd never gained an ounce of control over my body – but he was still a strong presence in my head even after the three months of my inhabitation. I'd only managed to get a little information from him, like that he had known (at least somewhat) most of the hosts in the building. But the only actual memory I had seen was of his first time on Earth when his barriers on my mind crumbled at seeing that Clint had become a Soul.

_**"You have heart…"** _

Of course, he had quickly recovered from his shock of seeing that Clint was a Soul and shut me out before I could see any more.

After I finished my breakfast and placed the dishes in the sink, I walked back through the living room to leave for work. In the living room Autumn Chorus was still sitting on the couch, thoroughly engrossed in her novel.

"Good bye Autumn Chorus. Oh, will you text me the shopping list later today? I told Clint I would go in his place this evening," I asked.

"Sure, of course. Goodbye, Fallen Midnight Snow.”

I thanked her as I walked into the hallway and down the hall to the elevator. Autumn Chorus is so lovely. I hoped one day to become her partner. When I had first arrived she had come to me seeking information on Thor, Jane's feelings still influencing hers, but once I'd told her I couldn't access Loki's memories her attention didn't cease and we'd gotten to know each other. We talked about our former planets – she hails from the Singing World of the blind bats, where she'd gotten her name – and all of the things we loved about Earth. It even turned out that she was continuing her host's occupation as an astrophysicist so she could find a place called Asgard. Thor, and Loki it turned out, where from there, and Thor had made it sound incredibly beautiful in her memories.

It wasn't until I was halfway to the day care I work at that Loki decided to comment on my thoughts of Autumn Chorus.

_If you do ever start anything with that Soul and Thor gets a hold of you, he will kill you. You know this correct?_

I didn't reply. Loki was just trying to scare me again, and I didn't pay attention any more. Why would Thor want to hurt me? It's not as if I would be with his partner, I would be with Autumn Chorus and she with me; there would be no place for Thor.

 _The_ body, _you parasite, the body is his beloved Jane, and I his brother. To him you would have taken us both away in that our minds are thought to be dead yet our bodies are still living without him!_

 _I thought you did not think him your brother,_ I replied, changing the subject because I never like when he went on about how Souls were killing people. It's easy enough to look around and see that no one is dead, and Loki is certainly not dead in the slightest.

 _I do not, I know we are not, but he refuses to see the truth and_ he _still calls_ me _brother!_

I didn't say anything else, because I'd arrived at the day care and one of my co-workers was saying hello. When I was a Bear, I'd been able to tell new Souls about the planet and answer every question they'd had, because their hosts were too young to have the answers in their own memories. I'd loved the look of wonder on their faces when I told them something new, or showed them things like how to bend their hands to cut the ice with their claws.

I had been hoping, in the beginning, that when I took the job at the day care Loki's presence would disappear quickly and I could use his memories of Midgard to help new Souls here like I did before. It was my Calling, not quite a Professor, but a Teacher nonetheless. Even though I could not answer all of their questions here on Midgard, I was able to help them with things like learning the language and some of the human customs I'd picked up without Loki's help, so I still enjoyed myself.

I went through the rest of my day in a normal manner, helping the children, answering question, and ignoring Loki's offhanded remarks. On my way back to the tower that evening, I stopped at the store. Looking through the shopping list Autumn Chorus sent me at lunch, I walked down one of the aisles, mentally checking off the items I'd already gotten.

 _Let's see… Chicken, check. Pasta, check. Pasta sauce, check. Eggs, check. Bread and milk, check, check. Umm, yes, it seems I've got everything._ I thought, looking between my full cart of groceries, and the list on my phone.

 _How do you plan to pay for all of this? You have no credit card or money – in fact I haven't even seen you cash a single check from that day care, how do you plan to pay for this?_ Loki asked, startling me slightly when I stopped at the end of one of the checkout lines.

Getting over the suddenness of his question, I realized Loki really wouldn't know a lot of things about the Souls, having been gone during the colonization and stubbornly ignoring everything I do outside of what concerns my body.

 _There's no money, there's no need for it. Souls come and take what they need, and "pay for it" by giving back to the community, like my work at the day care or Clint's as a seeker,_ I answered, taking a step forward in line.

 _Then why do we not just leave, why are we in line?_ he asked.

_Inventory. They need to know when to order more, so inventory is taken at the checkout lanes._

_Oh,_ was his simple reply, more subtle thoughts giving away that he felt stupid for not thinking of that himself. He continued asking me questions about my society, covering up his curiosity as best he could by asking them in tones that said "I clearly think this is stupid," and "I wouldn't do it that way," but I answer his questions well enough. Other than the unwelcome attitude, it's almost like back on the Mists planet teaching what others do not know. 

Once I'd gotten everything checked out – I'd bought a lot and had five or six bags on each arm – I headed back toward the tower. I started to think that maybe Loki was settling into this new life too.

It was a very _unsettling_ thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine_.
> 
> _**also please comment!!!** _


	4. Ambushed

A couple of days later – that Saturday night, to be exact – found most of the Souls in the tower sitting in the penthouse living room. Earlier in the day, someone had come up with the idea of having a bonfire in the living room and had gone out and bought marshmallows, chocolate, and gram crackers. Everyone sat around eating s'mores and sharing stories, songs, and nursery rhymes from the planets which they had lived on. Autumn Chorus and I were sitting together at the end of the couch, listening to Climbs the Ice Tower (whose host, Loki told me, was Darcy – the "funny little brunette" he had mentioned on the first day) as she began telling us the story of how she got her name.

"Well, it's not really all that exciting, but it was during my first term as a Bear. I had wanted to go see the ice towers that were just a little ways outside of the city I lived in. so one day my friend and I – she had an actual Bear name, so it doesn't have a translation – went there together. When we get there, we found this _huge_ snow field with these beautiful towers that looked so tall they might reach the sky, although I think the tallest one was really just shy of this building's height.

"So when we get there, and we get to the tallest tower, it the very center- ah!" she squeaked and hers and every other head in the room turned to the giant window on the far side of the room in fright of the sudden clap of thunder that had interrupted the story. Autumn Chorus had jumped and scooted closer to me in her moment of fright, so I draped an arm over her shoulders in comfort. I could feel Loki stir in my head, coming out of his thoughts, and becoming more aware of the present. Something like worry laced his emotions, or maybe... anticipation. Was he waiting for something?

 _What? It's just thunder._ I asked him, confused.

_**"I'm not overly fond of what follows…"** _

"That's weird," said Climbs the Ice Tower. "I thought the weatherman said there wasn't supposed to be a cloud in the sky for the next few days."

"It's not a storm, it's Brother- it's Thor! The humans are coming!" I said, jolting forwards on the couch and moving to grab Autumn Chorus' hand and pull her up off the couch with me in my panic.

"Are you sure, Falling Midnight Snow?" Clint asked, dropping the marshmallow he'd been about to skewer on a long wire, and was on his feet in a second.

"What- yes, I-I had a memory- we-we really don't have much time! We have to go!"

"Okay, everyone, you heard him. Let's go!" Suddenly Clint and I were tailing twenty frantic Souls out of the room, but before Clint and I can make it to the hall there came the sound of shattering class and a thunderous yell.

 _Ooh, a battle cry, yes, that'll surly stop their running, Thor!_ Loki yells sarcastically inside my head.

But it _did_ stop someone's running. Up ahead, one of the girls – it was too dark to tell which with only the fire for light – had tripped when she looked back at the monster's loud cry.

"Ice Tower, Help Autumn! Fallen Snow, get everyone in the hallway and hit the lockdown alarm on the other side of the doorway!" Clint yelled from behind me

 _When did he get so far away, why isn't he coming?_ I stopped to turn and see why Clint wasn't coming.

 _NO!_ Loki cut in, _He is buying us time, Falling Midnight Snow, so run unless you want to be Thor's punching bag again! He will be fine, LET'S_ GO. I might have caught that lie about him being fine, were it not for the next voice I heard.

"Nice job Goldilocks, you just had to rush in here. I know they got your girl, but that really didn't help," came another man's voice. It was off, though. it sounded…

 _Electronic. That would be the iron man,_ Loki told me, and images flashed through my mind of angry looking red and gold armor with its hand raised threateningly, ready to attack.

So I ran, and I ran fast. I ran to Autumn Chorus and Climbs the Ice Tower, and without thinking I pulled Autumn Chorus into my arms bridle style. She was limping, and going too slow, but I had her now, and I was still running fast. We three – the last three – finally made it to the hall. I passed Autumn Chorus off to Raining Star Dust (formerly Ms. Marvel) and told them to go.

Turning back to the door frame, I looked for the lockdown button; what I saw on the other side of the door caught my eye and shocked me. Clint, he was fighting – honestly fighting – Thor and the iron man. I'd never seen a Soul fight before! Souls don't fight! I-

 _He is a seeker. You said seekers could fight somewhat. If he has been here since the initial waves of your colonization and has_ Human _Clint's skill set, of course he can fight. Look at the behemoths he is fighting!_ Loki interrupted my shock, and I did. What I saw terrified me.

Violence. Anger. Yelling. Chaos. 

Thor swung his hammer at Clint. The iron man came up from behind, but before either of them could make their target, Clint ducked. Thor hit the iron man, who was knocked clear out the shattered window! And Clint, he- he actually took a swing at Thor.

 _Oh Norns! I'm going to be sick, this is horrid!_ I think.

 _By the Nine are you pathetic, Fallen Midnight Snow. You should be grateful that I keep my thoughts from you. You would never have a moment's peace otherwise._ Loki internally rolls his eyes.

"Fallen Midnight Snow!" Clint snapped and my eyes focused back on the scene in our living room. Clint's back is to me, Thor is holding him up by his shirt but he is straining his neck to face me at least somewhat. “Close the door, now! Get everyone to the safe room, and call the Seekers! … _now,_ Fallen Midnight Snow!" he prompted when he didn't see me move, and then the iron man comes flying back in through the window, a repulser charged and aiming at Clint.

"Do not concern yourself with Barton, Iron Man, I have him," said Thor, looking around Clint, squinting his eyes in my direction trying to see past the shadows. He could not. "They don't have their seeker now. They will be in chaos, and there is one in the doorway right there. Fetch it," Thor commanded, voice full of hatred.

There were flashes in my head then; they were coming from Loki, too concerned with his shock to hide the memories from me. Loki, who was having trouble himself fitting this rageful monster – and even Loki used that word now – into his idea of Thor. There was a happy little kid Thor, a proud teenaged Thor at his first victorious arena battle, prideful Thor at his coronation, confused Thor during his banishment… but even the angry Thor from Loki's attack on Midgard could not hold its own against this face of rage and pain.

Before I could really think to do much else, Iron Man was flying at me and I finally, _finally_ slammed my hand down on the button. The metal doors clanged shut before he had made it half way across the room. There was a heavy bang on the door a second later, and yelling. Yelling for me to open the door. 

Why would I do _that!?_

 _Just go down the hall and take the others to the safe room already, before Stark hacks his way through,_ Loki commands.

 _But what about-_ I'm cut off by images of bloody and dead bodies everywhere, of soldiers without limbs and- 

S'mores do not taste as good coming back up.

 _Those were some of my_ less _violent battles. Now unless you want to see more, and_ worse, _I suggest you_ MOVE, Loki threatened forcefully. I needed no further instruction – I ran down the hall, wiping my face with my sleeve.

 _Norns, look at me, having to run from battle,_ Loki complains. I cannot even begin to fathom why he would enjoy battle. If what I'd seen in the living room was merely a fight, and Loki's memories were only minor battles, I shuddered to think what a true battle would look like.

Once I reached the end of the hall where the others waited, I tried to tell them what Clint said while trying to catch my breath at the same time.

"Go... elevator… safe room… Clint said t-… to call the seekers." I managed between gasps. I took another second before pushing the down button on the nearest of the two elevators with shaky hands, and then walked to the other to do the same.

"Fallen Midnight Snow," Raining Star Dust asked hesitantly, "where is Clint?"

"They… Thor and the iron man have him." I looked away in shame at the other Souls gasps of shock, and cries of sorrow for their lost friend.

_Well it's not like he's dead… For Valhalla's sake, you are all so pathetic._

_Will you stop! This is actually a pretty traumatizing event for most of them, and even if he isn't dead yet there is nothing stopping those barbarians from- from- from killing him! It's not as if any of us can just magically burst in there and take them down like you-_ and just like that I have an idea.

 _No,_ Loki rejects the idea before I've really even asked it

_Please Loki all I need is so use your force field._

_No. I refuse to allow Thor to see what I've been reduced to. It is even more shameful than being a Jötnar._

_I'll stop doing thing simply to agitate you, like wearing pink shirts,_ I bargain.

_…I'm listening. Continue._

_I'll get our hair cut. All the way up to my neck._ I'd been keeping it long, like when Loki had invaded* – I'd liked the length, but Loki had wanted it cut back to where it had been when he'd still lived in Asgard.

And I want input on what we eat, he added.

 _Agreed, agreed, just no meat. Now_ please?

The elevators doors slide open and the Souls start piling in. Once everyone else was in I walked over to Autumn Chorus, leaned in to swiftly kiss her on the lips, and say, "If I don't come back, I just wanted you to know-" but the doors close before I can finish

How tragic, Loki mocks. _Now come on, let's get this idiotic suicide mission over with._

 _Show me how before we get there,_ I begged as I ran back down the hall. Loki starts showing me the memory of one of his sorcery lessons – we're in out early teens, by Midgardian standards, but were really nearing three hundred or so – and suddenly I knew how to use a small piece of our magic as though I had my whole life. 

Then I get to the door.

_Even after the five minutes we've been gone, Stark still hasn't managed to get through the door? Wow, Tony, you're getting weak too. Good. Okay, Fallen Midnight Snow, I'm going to show you one more thing because we're going to need a distraction so that we can ambush them._

And so Loki showed me another lesson. We're much older in this one, where he learned to make illusions and false duplicates, and suddenly I know too. Then he showed me how to see from our clone's eyes, something he was proud to say he taught himself.

I closed our eyes and pictured us at the far end of the living room. I was suddenly in a corner where we wouldn't be spotted, instead of in the hall, just like Loki wanted– _and make sure our eyes are green, no silver rings_ – and because this kind of magic worked through both body and Soul (ironically now I am the body and Loki is the Soul), I let Loki command the false us.

"Brother," he said frantically, the fear in his voice in no way matching the joy I can feel coursing through his thoughts. He stepped out of the shadows, wrapping our arms around our waist and hunching over slightly as though we were hurt.

"Loki?" Thor turned to face us, and Stark stopped his attempts to brutally blast his way through the door. "Brother? Where have you been all this time? Are you unwell?" he questions at seeing us.

"Away, doing something stupid – please, I need your help, Stark!" Loki cried over Thor's shoulder, and fell to our knees. "Please, I am wounded, I need aid… p-please..." he whimpered.

Stark and Thor both rushed over to us, leaving the door unguarded.

 _Okay, now, hold up the illusion and open our eyes…_ We were back in the hallway. _Good, okay, now the shield… perfect. Right, I'll keep them distracted. You grab Clint and go._

There was one thing we had forgotten. When I hit the unlock button, the metal doors slid open with a loud hiss. From our clone's eyes we saw the two men turn around, and it disappeared – I'd lost my concentration when the door opened. When we were back in ourself, Loki yelled to me.

_Run! Clint is closer to us and we still have our shield, do not make this a wasted effort!_

And so I run, pressing the lock-down button on my way in.

_Why did you-_

_It's too late to make it back out, we can just hold out until the seekers come._ I interrupted.

"Shit, What the hell?" Stark yelled, and fired a repulser blast at us It almost missed because of the darkness in the room, but hit the shield anyway, and completely vanished. I didn't even pause – Loki's memories had shown me that would happen.

I leapt over the back of the couch where Clint has been laid and enveloped the unconscious man in my arms, I knew that he would've still been safely within our shield even if we'd just sat next to him, but that didn't feel like enough. He didn't feel safe enough for me. So I pulled him up into my lap, and held him tight. I started rocking back and forth, all of what We'd just done finally catching up to me.

Holding Clint closer, and leaning forwards, I whispered, "It's okay Clint, the seekers are coming, they'll save us. It's okay, you're okay, we're okay," over and over, trying more to reassure myself more than the unconscious Soul in my arms. Tears spilled from my eyes because I was so terrified right now.

 _It_ is _okay, you and Clint are in safe and sound, and the seekers_ are _on their way. Take a breath, and calm down,_ Loki said, in a surprisingly reassuring voice.

"Brother? Loki?" I heard Thor call from only a few feet away, and my head snapped up to meet his gaze just in time to watch the last bit of hope fade from his eyes. One hand flew to his mouth as he gaped in horror, and the other lost its grip on his hammer Mjölnir. As he took a staggered step back, he didn't even bother trying to stop the river of tears that begin to flow.

Stark took a confused step around Thor, and then he saw us.

"No way," he whispered in absolute disbelief. "Thor, I am so, so sorry, man," he said to the blonde, who hadn't taken his eyes off of me. I knew what he saw, and now, looking at his misery filled eyes, I knew how he saw it. Knew how all humans, all host species, saw it. He saw my silver eyes, clouding the beautiful green of his beloved little brother, he saw a monster that kidnapped and killed yet another person he loved – his brother… And who had just used his brother's magic to save another monster that had killed his friend.

_Oh gods, I'm going to be sick again._

"Brother-" I started to say sorry, but he cut me off with an angry yell.

 _"YOU ARE NO BROTHER OF MINE, YOU BEAST!"_ and called Mjölnir to his hand once more. He tried to beat his way through my shield, but is not even to his third swing when-

Stark spoke, halting him mid-attack.

"Thor, buddy, I know you're hurting, but 'Tasha just shouted at me through the comms that she saw sixteen mutant Seekers on their way up from across the street. Hate to say it, buddy, really do, but it looks like they've got magic shields to protect them now." He nodded his head in my direction, and I looked away in shame.

Thor's arm fell to his side in defeat. "I have lost my brother more times than I care to count, in more ways than I care to imagine, but this, I think, is the worst. To know that his body still sits there – still breathes, and laughs, and cries, and feels, and moves, and _is–_ to know that it could be him, but never will again. It is _unfair!_ " He spoke these things to Stark, but even though I wasn't looking I could feel his gaze on me.

"Yeah, I know, not even I could wish this on Loki," Tony said. After a few more seconds, which each felt like an eternity, they finally left.

 _It kills him to think that I am dead… it really, actually hurt him… he cries for me! He mourns!_ Loki's thoughts were a mix between the pure joy of knowing how much his brother cared, and the sickening sorrow of knowing that he would never speak with his brother again.

 _He thinks me a monster,_ was my only thought. _I am a monster..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine._
> 
> * About Loki's/Fallen Midnight Snow's Hair length- I said in this chapter its about the length it was in The Avengers, because those are the only few memories of Loki's that FMS has, but it's really more like how it is in Thor: The Dark World, style and all.  
>  _ **also please comment!!!**_


	5. Changed

Change was everywhere after the attack.

I kept my promises to Loki. I got a haircut, stopped wearing clothes he didn't like, and started eating healthier, but my submissions to him didn't stop there. I'd started getting up at earlier in morning and jogging around the block because Loki though we were getting weak. I started doing things on Loki's recommendation, because Loki thought we needed it.

That was one of the biggest changes too – I stopped thinking of this as just my body with Loki an unwelcome guest. This was his body too, and I wanted to give Loki as much choice as I could. I wanted Loki to be as free as possible inside our body.

Loki changed too, though. His thoughts became darker and more depressed, less angry and annoyed at his situation than before Thor's attack. His thoughts were constantly on our memory of that night. It was the thing that finally got to him, that finally showed him that his brother didn't care that they weren't brothers by blood or the person he had become, and it made Loki long for his brother's love once more. I could feel the black hole of grief swallowing him at the knowledge that he would never see Thor again on peaceful, friendly terms. At the fact that he was going to die this way.

Once, while we had been lying in bed, I asked Loki to tell me about Thor, thinking that maybe talking about him might make Loki felt better, and jumped at the chance to talk about Thor. He told me about Thor not only that night, but every chance he got. It always made his thoughts swim in euphoria. Loki showed me how Thor took care of him when they were little, how they played in their mother's garden, and took turns playing "King of Asgard" in the throne room when their father wasn't looking.

He showed me how, as they got older, they would sneak away from the castle for reasons ranging from a festival in the city to an adventure in another world all together. He was always careful not to show me any information on the whereabouts of these worlds, but as time went on I stopped caring, too absorbed what beauty he did show me to think to tell the seekers about places like Alfheim or Nifelheim. By the time I realized that I should've been telling he Seekers about these new memories, it was myself and Loki both worrying at the thought of the Souls taking those worlds and their beauty. I didn't want the Souls there.

Something was wrong with me.

With every new memory, I began to feel Loki's need to impress Thor. I felt Loki's desire to make him proud and happy and to stand by his side. Somewhere along the way, his feelings grew so strong within us that there was no telling which of us was feeling what. It wasn't just Loki who missed Thor, who loved him – and it wasn't just Loki who was unpleased to be with the Souls instead of with Thor on the Helicarrier.

I didn't know how, but not even a month after his stories began – stories that seemed like beautiful fairy tales to me – it was me too. I missed Thor. I wanted to see him smile too, and I wanted leave the Souls to be by Thor's side. We dreamt of Thor, of Frigga and Odin. We dreamt together of Asgard and feasts in the great hall, and of dances in the ballrooms. We dreamt of all the things we could never have. Slowly, Loki's depression became mine as well.

Many things changed. I distanced myself from my friends, Clint (he was "Souls-Clint" to us now, because Loki and I need a way to specify "Soul-Clint" from "Human-Clint"), Climbs the Ice Towers, Raining Star Dust, and, saddest of all, Autumn Chorus. The more stories Loki told me, the less interested I became in interacting with the Souls. Yes, I still had meals with them, still talked to them and went to work every weekday, but it wasn't as it used to be. Autumn Chorus had come to me the night Thor attacked and told me she felt the same way. That she loved me. At first I had been ecstatic and overjoyed. So, so happy. Loki was a master at storytelling, though, and I became more focused on the tales he wove than spending time with Autumn Chorus. I knew she could tell that I wasn't as focused on her as I should have been, and it didn't change the fact that I thought her The One, but I just couldn't get away from the beauty inside my head.

I didn't talk with my other friend much either, not after I asked Loki about their hosts. He told me about Human-Clint, how when he first arrived he had taken over his mind and used him, and how he had fought against Loki and the Chitauri once he had become himself again (although how that had happened was still a mystery to Loki). His thoughts had been filled with regret at the fact he had taken away another's free will, and I did not miss the way he found it beautifully ironic that it took not only being taken himself, being forced into the position of weakness, to see the wrongness of it. I began to see the twistedness of it too, and it became impossible to look at the Soul that called himself Clint and not think how wrong it was that he took the humans body and pretended to be him, only to lie and steal the lives of his friends.

When he'd finished with Clint, I asked about the others. He told me that about Rhodey, Tony Stark's friend, and all that he had done in the United States Military, before we colonized and it was disband, and how he had helped Iron Man with his very own suit of armor. He told me of Betty Ross, the girlfriend of a man named Dr. Bruce Banner, and memories of the small timid-seeming man in the Helicarrier. Loki told me of Ms. Marvel – Carol, her real name had been – of Reed Richards, and Johnny Storm, and all the others.

He filled my memories with his without protest, because he enjoyed talking and being heard, and by the end of his stories of those humans' personalities, and courage, and willingness to die for their people (in battles which Loki told me of, but did not show me, from when the humans had ruled their planet and fighting was a necessary to subdue villains of extreme power).

It became harder and harder to look into the eyes of my friends without seeing the people their hosts once were. How could I look at Raining Star Dust and not see Carol Danvers, who tried so hard to prove herself? Who had given up a life of normalcy in the military to join the Avengers when she gained her powers. How could I look at Soul-Clint and not see Human-Clint, the little boy who ran away from the orphanage with his brother to join the circus, who had so much passion in his heart and never gave in; or Climbs the ice Tower – Darcy – with her funny little comments, who always smiled and could lighten the mood, no matter how bitter.

Then I asked about Jane. He told me that Jane was the love of Thor's life, that even in the few years they had known each other, and even though she was mortal and he was not, they had fallen in love. He told me how his tricks had gotten Thor banished to Midgard and how Jane had helped him with her kindness, giving him shelter and aid. He told me all about how after he'd attacked Midgard, Thor had begun staying more and more – "to keep it safe," his lips would say. "To be with her," his actions would reveal. Thor would spend all of his free time with "The Lady Jane," as he called her with love, or she would spend hers with him in Stark Tower. About two weeks after he had started telling me stories, I asked Loki how exactly he'd come across all this information, considering that none of these humans had been on friendly terms with him. He told me that no one would suspect a pigeon in a balcony ledge in the heart of Manhattan to be more than a pigeon on a balcony ledge in the heart of Manhattan, and therefore there would be no reason to shoo him away (or attack him). They would speak their minds freely to each other in front of him, and be their very normal selves without any thought of a spy.

It mattered not to me now how Loki came about his knowledge of the hosts of the tower, not anymore. His telling of Jane Foster, and the man I'd come to know along with Loki as brother, had hit everything home for me. This place had been Thor's home. Maybe not the same way Asgard was, but this was the place, while he was on Midgard, that he returned home to every evening, the place he and his Jane slept. The place I called home, and I called mine, was once the home of people like Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, of Janet Von Dyne and Hank Pym, of Natasha Romanov, and of so many others. All those people who had either fled from their homes or erased from existence as the price of staying.

The Souls had come and chased so many people away, ripped so many families and loved ones apart. We'd come and taken everything!

So here I sat, laying out lawn chair long past the midnight hour when I'd come out, weeping for the losses of people I had never known. I could not call them Loki's feelings, for while he may have had sympathy for them, he did not hold any care for them. No, these were my tears, and my emotions. It was I, the Soul called Fallen Midnight Snow, who wept in the night for people I had never known yet still so gravely wronged by existing. I cried for their loss, and for my shame, and for the shame that should have been in every Soul's heart that I knew would never be. I cried and cried, and it wasn't until the sun was finally dawning and chasing away the shadows of the night that Loki finally interrupted me.

 _Can you hold yourself together long enough to make it to our room? Soul-Clint will be up any minute and will find it worrisome if you have spent the entire night not only crying for people he would think you to have reason to mourn, but for doing so on the balcony of all places,_ he asked.

He was right too. That was another thing that had changed – once it had not been uncommon to see four or five Souls out here or in the living space at any given time of day, it was the main gathering areas after all. It had been nice to sit by the pool outside, or on the couch inside and converse with friends. Now, though, after the attack by Thor and the iron man at a time when near all of us had been there, it was very rare to see a Soul alone in the living room for very long and I was literally the only one of us to came out in the openness of the balcony. They feared The Thunderer would come again for them if the even so much as thought of coming out here. I was not afraid though, not with Loki's stories of Thor swimming in my head. I did not see a reason to fear. Oh, I knew if he came he would grab me by the shirt – maybe by the neck – and take me away never to return again, but I did not fear it. I welcomed it, even. I wanted Thor to come, and I wanted to be taken, I wanted to go to the place he called home, and I wanted, wanted, wanted to do whatever it took to get rid of those tears that had fallen down his face that night. To tell him that Loki was not gone. That he was here. To tell him that I brought Loki back, and hope he would hate me no longer.

Loki welcomed it too, now. He hated being trapped here, not just within his own body with only me to talk to, but here amongst these oh-so-perfect beings. I could not see the appeal in it, but Loki longed for confrontation. For an argument. He was all things chaos and disorder, and the world we Souls created had none of that. He wished that if we were taken away, that he could watch the humans disagree and argue, over petty things at least. He was growing restless in the calm, and while I knew he kept it bottled up inside for my sake, it was wearing thin on his patience.

Loki was right, though. In that moment, Thor was not coming and Soul-Clint would think it worrisome that I had been out here. With one final deep inhale and exhale to steady our breathing, I wiped the tears from our face and stood to walk back to our room.

 _If this was their home – when they fled, what happened to their things, Loki?_ I questioned, walking up the curved pathway that lead to the living room entrance.

_I imagine they took what they could, and abandoned what they did not need. I would not know what was done to the things left behind…_

_Do you think they left anything important- well, emotionally valuable I mean, when they left?_

_I couldn't say, it is hardly as though it matters anyhow – their belongings would be long gone by now, and they have no way to retrieve them regardless._

_No,_ I said, stepping into the hallway heading for the elevators, _My people are not ones to throw things away just because the humans are no longer here to clam them and they themselves have no use for them. What if all of their things are just laying folded up in boxes in the basement somewhere – what if any of Thor's things are here?_

_Well it would not be as if all of his things have been shredded to bits and we will never see them again, so stop getting all worked up,_ Loki replied as I pressed the up button next to the elevator door and stepped back to wait for it.

 _Now that is a horrible thought, but I mean it. What if some of Thor's things are still in the building?_

One of the elevator doors slid open to reveal Soul-Clint. "Oh, hey Fallen Midnight Snow, what're you doing up so early?" he greeted, stepping out. Once I would have answered his question with immediate honesty, it wasn't in the nature of Souls to lie. Now I stood, mind racing to come up with one, because things had changed and I was not going to tell him what I had been doing.

 _Oh for Valhal- tell him you were having trouble sleeping, it is at least a half truth. Loki quickly commanded me. I swear, you shame my reputation as a liar, Fallen Midnight Snow._

_Sorry._

"Nothing!" my voice cracked and I cough, "I- I was just having trouble sleeping is all."

 _You, are a horrible liar._

_Well that is because I never do it!_ Soul-Clint seemed to buy it anyway – and what reason would he have not to? Why would he have any reason to think me a liar, just because my host had been? Was still.

The second elevator door opened to take us up to our room, but before I walked in couldn't help but turn and ask, "Clint, if there were any of the things that belonged to the humans - The Avengers – still in the building, where would they be?"

"We've got a lot of things in storage in case we find one of the humans, and the Soul wants any of their host's belongings back," he answered. "We haven't got anything of Loki's though, since he didn't live here. Sorry," he apologized. He and the others still don't know about Loki, the only ones who did were Healer Calms the Spirit and Seeker Plays the Word Games. I went to the healing facility every two weeks to talk with the seeker, it wasn't as if we three were keeping it a secret from anyone. Secrets we're also non-existent in the Souls' society. I had simply never chosen to say anything. In the beginning I still thought Loki might be able to take me over, and I worried if I told them he was here, my friends might run from me in fear that Loki would takeover and attack them. So I only told them – well Autumn Chorus, the only one who actually asked about Loki's memories – that I couldn't access them, not that Loki was blocking them.

"Oh… Thank you anyway, Clint," I said, following Loki's command to go along with Clint's assumption. "Have a good day," I added, walking into the elevator.

"You too, Fallen Midnight Snow." The doors close.

Lies.

Secrets.

Wanting the love of another species over that of my own kind.

So many _changes…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine_.
> 
> _**also please comment!!!** _


	6. Kindred

_Tell me about you- about your species,_ Loki said as I re-pack yet another useless storage box, with none of Thor's belongings in it.

Loki and I had gone to our room and slept for several hours after leaving the balcony, and when we woke up we found we couldn't take our minds away from the idea that something of Thor's might actually be within our grasp, so we had walked down to the storage room and spent the last hour looking through box after box after box of things of Tony's and the others'. But nothing of Thor's.

 _I thought I already did,_ I said remembering the day at the grocery store when he had asked how I would pay for the groceries.

 _No, I asked and you told me of your society here on Midgard,_ he corrected. _I wish to know other things as well._

"I do suppose it is time for a break," I sigh aloud, and sat back against another pile of boxes taking out my phone and sliding my thumb across the lock screen, I'm going to play a game so my hands will still be busy while we talk.

 _Ask away then,_ I think, tapping on a puzzle game.

 _How old are you,_ He started with.

_Well, with as long as the bears live, and as many life terms I lived I'd say about as old as you. A few millennia or so. We can theoretically live forever as long as we have a healthy host._

_And I am immortal as well. Hm, looks like you and I could be together for the rest of eternity. How many planets have you species conquered then?_ He asks, changing the subject quickly, not wanting to think about that.

_We colonies not-_

_Same thing, how many?_ He interrupted, not having the patience for our difference in definitions.

_Our kind live on… let's see with the addition of earth and the dolphins- you were paying attention when the professor explained that they really look more like Midgardian dragonflies correct? Well with them I think it's about nine, plus the Origin, our home world, makes about ten._

_And you're people are so vast in number that they may take up ten planets?!_ He blurted, astonished. Put that way, so am I.

 _How do you reproduce in such large numbers?_ Loki followed with.

 _Some of us, but not all, have the ability to divide our cells, to create millions of new souls at once. I am one of those few,_ I add when I feel Loki is truly interested in the subject. _Of course in this alien body, I cannot be a mother, as your reproduction origins are meant to sire, not carry._

 _Actually, Loki said, and later,_ he will tell me he does no why he confided in me, _you and I have that in common. That this form, with the pale skin and the green eyes, and the… parts, meant for siring is alien to us both._

 _I don't follow you Loki,_ I say, setting my phone in my lap. How can his body be alien to him? And I know we are male, I have seen us naked plenty of time to prove it.

_Just like you Fallen Midnight Snow, I was born on a planet full of ice and giants-_

_You were born on Jotunhiem? But, I thought you were Asgardian._

_Shush, and I will tell you. It seems once more I am the one answering questions... Anyhow, while the particular tale is one for another time, I will tell you that I too thought for most of my life that I was Asgardian, but as I learned only recently, I am truly a Jötnar. So you see, this form is alien to us both, and the Jötnar have the ability to both sire and carry their offspring, so you and I are alike in that our alien form cannot be mothers, but our true ones may._

_And that we were both born on world of ice… though you did just say that didn't you… and our age. and we both invaded and took minds._ I say, smiling at the thought of our similarities (though it faltered at the last one.)

 _Yes, apparently we a kindred spirits from across the universe distend to meet,_ there was sarcasm lacing this thought, but I actually found the idea rather endearing. I smile as I put my phone back in my jean pocket, and stand to pick another box.

 _Do you think we have anything else in common?_ I asked, picking a box from the top of a pile I haven't tried yet.

 _We both despise the doings of our people._ he offers.

He is right, while I could never hate the Souls themselves, I would never be able to condone letting us take more worlds and more lives. I hate that we take people's freedom, and justified it by saying that we were bring peace to them, when we really just erased them. But I try not to dwell on it.

_And royalty, my first host on the Mists Planet was the Young Prince of the planet..._

_Lucky you._ he said sarcastically.

_Why do you hate the J-_

_Ah! It is my turn, a question for a question._ He interrupts.

 _Okay-this box is full of Human-Clint's things… Soul-Clint must not have wanted them,_ I add, re-packing the sleek expensive looking arrows back into the box.

_Why did the soul keep Human-Clint's name?_

_Um, well I could not really say. Names are different for everyone. Some- most really- have common names from worlds they've lived on, like me or Autumn Chorus. Some will have names that come from actions they have accomplished, like Climbs the Ice Tower, who Climbed one of the highest tower ever carved before our arrival on the bears planet, there was ever a soul, though I didn't know them, the was called Rides the Beast for a time. I cannot remember the story of why it happened, but they road into one of the cities atop a claw beast once._ I show him the image of a whale sized monster, from my memories. He compares it to a monster from Jotunhiem.

Seeing as the last few boxes had been nothing but Human-Clint's belongings, I moved to another section. To one of the smaller stacks, that is near the very back of the poorly lit room. Walking over, I finished my explanation to Loki.

 _My guess though, is that he kept it because he was here in the beginning, like I've says before, and he had to pretend to_ be _Clint because we were still too few in numbers. He probably became used to the name, and decided to keep it._

 _That would be logical,_ Loki replied, thinking over my answer.

Stopping at the new pile of boxes I reached for one of the smaller ones on top. Setting the box on the floor, I follow, sitting cross-legged in front of it. Carful not it rip any of the flaps I slowly unwove them from each other. Once I've got the box open, I pull out the top item smiled madly.

_**"Thor!" I cry, running down the long palace corridor after him, my stubby toddler legs not going quite as fast as Thor's "waaaaiiiiit for meeeeeee"** _

_**"Hurry up Loki!" he calls back.** _

_**It is well past midnight now, but we do not care if we wake anyone with our foot step's loud echoes or our shouting. There was a storm tonight and it had woken us both, Thor had tried to crawl into my bed at first- we were still young enough to share a room- to stop my crying, but after a particularly strong bout of thunder had shaken the palace, we had bolted out the door headed for out mother and father chamber.** _

_**Running past the guards posted at the door, it's not like they were going to stop us from entering, Thor and I run in, the guards closing the doors behind us politely.** _

_**"Mother! Father!" Thor shouts, running across the room and jumping on the bed in between them. I'm right behind him, crawling up the bed with Thor.** _

_**"Thor? Loki? What is wrong my loves?" Mother asks, propping herself up on one elbow, squinting to see us, her eyes not having adjusted to the darkness just yet.** _

_**"Has something happened boys?" our father asks, sitting all the way up, a little more alert them our mother.** _

_**"The thunder and lightning… it scared us." I say, scooting closer to Mother. As if to prove its superiority over us, the storm produced a bright, bright lightening strike, and another boom of thunder that once more shakes the castle, rattling the window above the bed. Thor and I both jump and cry in fright, each diving for the parent closes to us; Thor to father, and I to mother.** _

_**"My, that is a rather strong storm out there tonight," Father comments, settling back down with Thor still in his arms. "Why do you not give them your blanket dear Frigga, and they may sleep soundly with us tonight."** _

_**Thor seem content now, snuggling into fathers pillow, to know our parents will not be asking us to go back to our own room, but as mother releases me from her arms to pull the small hand sown quilt from underneath herself, I ask;** _

_**"Why do we need that blanket too, well we not be sharing this one?" I gesture to the large white and gold comforter that Mother and Father had been sharing, and that Thor and I had now crawled under.** _

_**"Well yes, but this one-"she moves Thor and I closer to the center, and adjusting the small brown quilt so that it is over the two of us, but still under the white and gold blanket "- has a spell cast upon it that bring peace and serenity to one's mind. It will calm you both and help you to sleep."** _

_**"Can I still cuddle with you, Mommy?" I ask** _

_**"Oh, of course Love."** _

_**She moves closer to me and envelopes me in her arms once more, and the spell does work, within just a few minutes Thor and I are completely asleep between our parents, the thought of the thunder's loud roar completely forgotten.** _

"Why in the nine realms would Thor even still have this?" I questioned Loki, laughing in my joy, and holding the millennia out quilt close to my chest. Inhaling deeply into it, even more laughter bubbled from my chest- it even still smells like Thor!

 _I do not know. I know he kept It most of our childhood, for other times when he could not sleep, but I was not even aware he still had it!_ Loki was laughing too (as best one can laugh inside their own head).

I wrapped the blanket around us, knowing from Loki's knowledge that the spell for calmness has long since faded out of the weavings, but that was of no concern now, we did not want calm, we wanted to explode in our joy of having found not just the boxes of Thor's things, but this thing of all things. Not just something important to Thor, but something important to both Thor and Loki (and myself by default).

 _What else is there!? What else is there!? Look in the other boxes!_ Loki commanded, and I happily comply.

Disappointingly, there didn't seem to be anything else as precious to Loki and I as the quilt in the rest of the boxes, mostly clothes and everyday items- Thor had apparently not brought much of home here to Midgard. We did find a few framed pictures of himself with people like Jane, Darcy and Selvig, and even a few with Mr. Stark, and Human-Clint and others that we placed off to the side.

A half hour later finds us on our way back to our room, I have all of the pictures balanced in our arms, the quilt over our shoulders and I was carefully pushing a large cardboard box filled with other things across the hallway floor with my foot.

 _"What_ are you _doing_ Fallen Midnight Snow?" I heard someone laugh from ahead of me. Looking up, I saw Raining Star Dust floating around the corner (she loved using Carol's ability to fly whenever she can).

"Oh! Um, I-I- The storage," I stammer, then jestered with my arms, "Thor's things. In the storage."

Raining Star Dust floated over, and looked down at the box at my feet. "Do you want any help, that looks heavy." She asked.

"Yes. Please. We- _I_ was just headed to my room with it."  
Raining Star Dust happily picks up the heavy box- Carol's strength making it no trouble at all- and starts walking beside me. Glancing at the box, then back up at me, she asked, "Did you go and get Thor's stuff because you miss him? Because of Loki missing him- I only ask because my host has no memory of Thor and Loki ever getting along and- and when, he a-attacked, that must have been horrible- you were so brave, by the way. Running in there to save Clint like you did."

_Loki! What do I tell her!?_

Tell her:

"Loki- uh, he does- did miss Thor. And, um, well yes, see-seeing him attacking was- it was terrifying, but it, um, dredged up memories-good memories- and it made me miss him like Loki did- _he did._ "

We reached the elevator now, and she presses the button with her elbow.

_You are so terrible at lying, even coping me word-for-word, that it actually pains me._

_And it pains me_ to _lie._

The elevator arrives and we step in, this time I press the button with my elbow, I accidentally press the button for the living room floor.

"Oops," I said, pressing the button right above it that would take up to the floor with all of our room on it. We're quiet as the elevator ascends, and when it stops on the living room floor, neither of us moves to leave. Not until I hear the sound of shattering glass coming from down the hall. And _thunder._

 _Thor!_ Loki and I cry in unison.

I've dropped the pictures and move to take a step out of the elevator when I feel a hand on my wrist. I turn to look and Raining Star Dust; she's dropped the box, and is holding my wrist tightly.

" _What_ are you _doing?_ That- that's _them,_ that's the humans!"

"I'm _going_ to see my _brother!"_ I snarled (and I'll be appalled at myself later) without thinking. I jerked myself out of her grasp, and bolt down the hall. The elevator doors close before she can follow, sending her up and away. I do not care. Thor is here, and Loki and I are running to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> __  
>  **please comment!!!**   
> 


	7. Incapacitated

Often time, when one is excited enough, they do not fully think through the consequences of the actions they take. They only see what they want to see, the happy ending, the light at the end of the tunnel. The Bother at the end of the hall. When people are excite and happy, and only looking at the end, they do not think things through. They do not think of the things that stand in their way, and will run bullheaded into any given situation without any thought of the dangers standing in the way. Like, for instance, the angry super soldier standing guard outside the living room door.

The Captain as no trouble seeing us, they've come the day light and no one has put the building in lock down yet. I had run down the hall with no thought but of seeing Thor, I did not think of the others that would be with him. Of the weapons they would have. Captain America is standing outside of the entrance. A shot gun shot gun in one hand, and his shield in the other. He's not wearing his mask, though he has on the rest of the star-spangled outfit, and I could plainly see the hate in his eyes when I round the corner.

He must've heard me coming because his gun is already raised, aiming straight for me, his shield is as well, guarding his chest as if he expects retaliation on my end.

"Freeze!" he says, and I hear him cock the gun. It was small, but I know even the smallest of human weapons are enough to kill, so I do as I am told- it is not as if I was going to attack him anyway, I had been planning (if you could even call this stupidity planning) on seeing Thor. I had not even thought of the others he would bring.

Freezing in places, breath ragged and body shacking- out of adrenal and fear now- I stare at the human, waiting.

_Loki, I-I-I-I- what do I do?_

_Put up the shield- No! No! Don't!_ He stops me before I try.

_What? Why not? He is going to shoot us!_

_Let him capture us, we will see Thor if he does. He will shot to disable if we are not a threat, it is how the good captain is… I hope._

"Damn, they really did get you." He mumbled, just loud enough for us to hear.

 _Yes, rub it in why don't you Rogers,_ Loki's reply went unheard by its intended recipient.

"Tony! Come here! I got one! It's the one that got Loki, but he's just standing here, I thought you said this one fought!" he shouted, turning his head just lightly into the living room, he eyes never living us.

"Well he used a magic shield, he didn't really fight- God they completely emptied my bar, what the hell?" We hear Iron Man's electric voice from far inside the room, then the hum of the repulser's got louder, he crossed the thresh hold into the hall way, and we were facing the angry metal man once more. The second Stark came through the door the lights in the hallway shut off and the door itself starts to slide shut.

"Shit, it's trying to trap us in!" Rogers exclaimed, quickly shoving his shield in between the door and the frame before it can lock them in, it left just enough room for them to go back through.

"Hello again, Wannabe Reindeer Games," Stark says and I think there may be a smirk in his voice, as if he has said something funny, but with the mask in the way I cannot tell. He raises his armored hand to me, and I take a step back in fear, but don't raise my shield.

_Loki!_

_Don't, it cannot fatally hurt us._

_But it can still-_

_I have taken worse; they_ could _have had the green beast with them._

_**"Puny God."** _

He showed me the memory of the Hulk walking away after smashing us into the living room floor. Gods, what is wrong with human, they would give their minds over to horrid, destructive beasts, but they will not give themselves to use, because we are monsters!?

 _I do not believe it was his intent to become such a thing,_ Loki commented nonchalantly.

"Call the others back; tell 'em we got one." Stark tell the Captain, wasting no time in firing the repulser's white hot energy straight at our chest

"Aah!" I cry out when it hit and the power behind it sent me flying back. One minute there is plain only in my chest, I heard a loud crack and pain exploded everywhere, first my head, then my shoulders and then my back. My chest began to burn from the pain of the initial blast, that coupled with everything else and I began to sob.

I stared at the ceiling, the world around me is fading out, and my vision is tunneling. Over the ringing in my ears I heard two sets of feet, and I knew they must have been coming closer. They're over me suddenly, their figures no more than blurry shapes now.

"Damn, that was easy, but, yeah, that's defiantly not Loki. Man it's a good thing Thor not with us this time." Stark said, something like sorrow in his voice. I turned my head, trying to focus my eyes, to force them to see the humans. Surely that could not be. Surely Brother was with them.

"…Br-Brother is not… But the thunder-Haaah!" I tried to question, gasping suddenly as the Captain lifts my arm, jerking my shoulder, which I thought might be broken.

 _Oh, don't be a baby, it is only sore… we will be… fine…_ Loki's thoughts began to fade away, as well as mine.

 _Did we… hit our head… that… hard…_ was my last thought, and then nothing.  
________________________________________  
"Hello again Wannabe Reindeer Games." Tony greets the parasite from behind Steve, smirking at his own cleverness. The parasite looked confused for a second, and when Tony raised his palm to the thing, a look of absolute terror, that was so out of place on Loki, crossed its face and it stepped back. Its eyes go glossy, as if it was no longer looking at the two humans in front of it.

"Call the others back, tell 'em we got one." Tony said to Steve, firing at the thing. They are both surprised when, instead of raising the magic-powered shield Tony and Thor had told them this parasite had, it took the full blow, and flew several yard back. It hit the grown with a loud bang, and sharp crack as its head smacked the granite flooring.

Steve and Tony watch for a moment as it just layed there, small strangled sobs escaping its lips, as it stared blankly at the ceiling. When they were sure that it wasn't going to move they walked slowly over to it- ever vigilant for Seekers to round the corner, or the parasite to suddenly spring up and attack.

"Damn, that was easy, but, yeah, that's defiantly not Loki." Stark commented , looking down into the vacant silver-over-green eyes- the tell-tale silver of a Soul's occupation. "Man it's a good thing Thor not with us this time."

The last comment seemed to snap the parasite out of its trance, because its head turned to face them, its eyes trying desperately to focus, and it opened its mouth to speak.

"… Br-Brother is not… But the thunder- Haaah!" it was cut off when Steve takes its arm, its face the picture of pure agony. Quickly Steve stabs the needle full of tranquilizer into its arm, feeling almost sorry for it. Once they are sure that the tranquilizer worked- because it was meant for animals, and it didn't work on Thor (Yes. Tony'd tried it. Once. Before the invasion. Don't judge him, he was bored), they weren't sure if it would work on a Jötnar- Steve picked it up, and handed it to Tony. Walking back to the living room, Steve talked into his earpiece.

"Susan, Logan, we got one, get back to living room before the seekers show up. we gave they others enough time to fly by anyway." Ducking through the doorway, under his shield, Steve turned to Tony, and carefully transfer the body under the door into his arms so that Tony could come through himself.

 _"'Kay, we're on our way. Who is it?"_ Steve heard the anxiousness in Susan's voice, hope that it might be the body of her brother or husband that they had found, and they may be able to find a way to get them back now.

"Sorry Su, it's not Reed or Johnny, it's Loki, he just sorta ran up to us and actually froze there, so we got him." Steve set the parasite down on the couch and held his gun at the ready, incase it's just playing possum, and Tony does the same, only in the direction of the doorway.

 _"Wait. You're saying it run up_ to _you… and just…_ stood _there?"_ Logan's disbelieving voice is heard in reply, _"'Cause in my experience with these things, they tend to either run away screaming_ for _a Seeker, or they_ are _a Seeker."_

_"Yes, I know how they are Logan, thank you,"_ Steve replied flatly, _"But trust me, this one's no seeker."_

"Hey cap, tell them to hurt it up, Natasha spotted two dozen seekers this time. Shit. And helicopters, we're gonna have to get out of here fast." 

"You guy-" Steve began. 

"We're here, we're here," came Su's voice as she, followed closely by Logan, came through the doorway, ducking under the shield the same way Steve and Tony had. Walking back past the two as they entered, Steve tells one of them to get the pariste, and head to the quinjet on the balcony. When he got to the door he gave his shield a firm few yanks before it finally dislodges itself from the doorway, and the door slid safely shut with its loud hiss. 

Several minutes later finds the five of them (having safely picked Natasha up off the roof across the street without the helicopters stopping them) plus the parasite several miles out to sea. They knew they risk the lives of every person aboard The Helicarrier every time they did this, possibly leading the Souls back to their safe haven, but they also knew they needed one group to be a distraction. Low to the ground, and in the city, that was the quinjet that the souls would focus on, not the one that flew above the clouds and passed up the city completely. The one that would go on proper raid for supplies. 

An attack on the tower was a perfect distraction too, if the souls thought all they were doing was trying to kidnap their lost friend, they would be focused more on their safety and not the second jet that didn't stop, plus it was a bullet proof plan now that they actually had kidnapped a soul. A month and a half back, when Thor and Tony had attacked on their own they had been keeping the seekers focus on them and the tower when another group and their quinjet continued inland high above the cloud. But today, they had been another distraction while that group flew back over the city headed out to sea. Now both jets flew side-by-side out to sea. 

"Maybe something's wrong with this one, it _is_ inside Loki after all." Natasha comments to Tony, who had just explained how they "captured" it, staring at his incapacitated form as 

Susan finishes zip-tying his wrists, elbows, ankles and knees together, from where it's buckled into one of the seats in the back, and as she re-adjusts the brown quits around his shoulders- let it never be said she is cruel, not even to the enemy. 

"It was coming for Thor." Steve stated from the co-pilot's seat. 

"How do you know that?" Questioned Logan from the other pilot's seat. 

"When Tony shot it down, it wasn't really _there,_ you know? Like, it was focusing on something else, but as soon and Tony said it was a good thing we didn't bring Thor, it snapped out of it and said something about "brother" and "thunder". My guess is that it mistook the quinjet's landing for Thor's thunder and came running. I just can't figure out why it would do that." 

"Wait, it called Thor "brother"? But Thor's not _its_ brother. Just Loki's." Su questioned, confused. 

"Yeah, it did that last time too." Tony answered his mask lifted while he talks. "Maybe since the body is Loki's, I don't know, it might actually think Thor _is_ its brother. I mean we know from experience enough that they keep the bodies memories, so maybe Tasha's right and something _is_ wrong with it and it forgot that it's not Loki, and Thor's not actually its brother?" 

"Wow, Tony, did you come up with that all on your own?" Logan teased. 

"Shut up Logan!" Tony yelled defensively, all tension gone as the others begin laughing and Tony's expense. 

Two hours passed with no trouble, and Logan and Steve prepare to land the jet on the landing strip atop the flying helicarrier. Ready to finally, finally have everyone home. The landing is shortly followed by the other jet (the raiding group that they had been the cover for) and when they exited the two groups meet each other. Both groups, minus Tony who is holding the parasite and is several yards back, begin to unload the supplies for the raider's jet. 

"Is that Loki?!" Nightcrawler was suddenly at Tony's side, having popped out of nowhere after seeing that Tony had the captured alien. Nightcrawler, or Kurt Wagner if you used his real name, had come to shield quickly after the invasion began, along with Xavier and many other teachers and students from his school. Xavier's gifts had allowed him to know immediately what was happening, and who was safe to evacuate, and who, sadly, he could do nothing for. 

"Yeah," Tony said sullenly, shifting the parasite in his arms, so that his face rolls away from Tony's chest and faces Kurt, head limp agents the metal arm, "The parasites got him. I'll tell you about it later, go back and help the others finish unloading." He said, seeing people exiting the 'carrier, it's the usual three that come to check that the bodies returning were still themselves; Phil Coulson, Dr. Strange, and Dr. Banner. But they had one other person with them this time. Thor is walking beside the three other men, staring- no, _glaring,_ and the unconscious form in Tony's arm. 

_Crap, did Logan or someone call it in already? Okay, God, if you're still listening to humans, please don't let Thor kill me for bringing back this alien. Please._

Tony shifted the parasite again after Kurt left, so that It's head wasn't just lulling to the side, but rather facing Tony's armored chest again. This position also gave Tony a better grip on it in case he has to fly off fast, because Tony really wasn't sure how Thor was going to react to the parasite, and parasite-or-Loki, neither really deserved to have their head smashed in by Mjölnir's angry owner. 

"I'm still human." Tony announces when Coulson gets close enough, opening his eyes wide to show their brown with no silver over it. "No one got caught on our team, Kurt was here a second ago so he's fine, and I'm guessing since I see every one, and he did tell me otherwise, that means Mystique, Kitty and the other are all fine too." 

Coulson and Strange lowered their guns, and Thor stepped around them. Staring at his brother's form he noticed the blood dripping from his hair. "He bleeds," was all he said. 

It's all he could say, because really, what else was there? _"You have my brother, but that's not my brother?"_ Well that was obvious _"Why have you brought it here?"_ Well he's not stupid; he knows they need information from the parasites, it was no fault of his friends that the one they had was his brother. Still, in this moment he can forget that and see his little brother in Tony Starks arm, bleeding, bound, and unconscious and he hold his arms out. 

"Please. I will do him no harm." Thor begged, a sob threatening to escape his throat. Tony looked behind Thor, to Coulson and the others, and they gave the go-ahead, so he hands the parasite over. 

"Carful though, he did smack his head pretty hard on my granite floor. Banner, come here and take a look at his head. None of the rest of us are hurt, by the way." Tony adds. 

The others finished unloading the quinjet's contents onto the landing zone, and while Kitty and Kurt drove the two jets back into their garage the others join their group. While Bruce was looking over its head, and Coulson was calling in another group via head-set to carry the contraband into the helicarrier Tony let Steve rely the story again, telling them all he's going to "dress in something more comfortable," and left. 

"-so we just took it down- well Tony shot it once and it went down right away, and I gave him a shot of tranquilizer- which should wear of here in a little bit." Steve shifts his gaze from the parasite to look Thor directly in the eyes. "I think it was coming for you Thor." 

"Well he has certainly found me." Thor said, his voice is stoic now, if not a bit angry. Turning to lead the (now) large group back inside, he asked "What shall be done with him, Son of Coul" 

"Well if he doesn't need immediate medical attention, I think it would be best to take him to a cell, and we can interrogate him when the tranquilizer wares off." Coulson answers. 

"The gash on his head is pretty much healed, I'm guessing the parasite-" no one missed how Thor flinched at this word "-still has Loki's healing capabilities. The blood in its hair is old, so I think we can just use a little disinfectant on the wound after we get him in a cell and he'll be fine." Banner said as they entered the carrier, now heading down to the cells. 

Only Phil, Steve, and Natasha accompanied Thor to the cell block at the bottom of The Carrier, the others having politely dismissed themselves to go have dinner, or simply walked away. Most of the people on the helicarrier were under the unspoken agreement of truce; that you do not attack the others or at with hostility, because this is your only safe place and you are here until you die, so get along. Mystique and Dr. Doom were just two examples of people abiding by this rule. But there were still some who, after coming to the helicarrier, had not been able to behave themselves, and while no one was willing to be so cruel as to throw them to the parasites, they could not be allowed to roam about the carrier any longer. Those that were unwilling to behave had been given a life sentient in the cell block. 

"Hey look! They got Loki!" one of the inmates shouted to the other as Thor passed him, laughing as if his is the funniest thing in the world. 

"What?! Couldn't get him to listen, had to beat him senseless?! You hypocrites!" another accused, banging on the clean cell door, and they ignored her too. They stop when the reach the cell, and step aside as Phil slides his ID card, and punches in the code that will open the cell's solid-but-clear door. 

"No!" The person in the next cell over shouted. "Look at his eyes! The parasites got him! _The parasites_ got the bastard!" 

_How would he know his eye-_ Thor looked down quickly, shifting his brother so that he looks up at Thor. Half-lidded reflective-silver eyes look back at him uncomprehendingly for only a second before they close once more. It was enough to make Thor's chest tighten and tear threaten to spill over. It reminded him that yes, the parasites had gotten him, and they would never give him back. 

"Come on, set him on the bed Thor," Coulson said softly, walking into the cell with Thor, while Natasha and Steve wait outside. 

"That tranquilizer should last another thirty minutes or so, but he may end up sleeping through the night anyway. I say we do the interrogation in the morning." Natasha suggested. 

Thor laid the parasite down on the cot, and pulled the quit away from it. He knew this quit, with its soft brown fabric and intricate stitching, this was his mother's quilt. He and Loki had shared it though most of their childhood, it was one of the few things he had brought with him from home, and he was not going to have it in the hands of the creature that killed his brother. 

"Thor?" Steve questions. 

"It belongs to me, not the parasite." Thor answered harshly, walking out of the cell past the others, and completely leaving the cell block. The other three follow him out a few minutes later once Coulson is finished applying the disinfectant, and moving the body around to a more comfortable position ( it was tossed onto it's side when Thor took the quilt from under it, and Coulson didn't need it to lose circulation in that arm). 

They walked down the hall, ignoring the shouts of the inmate, yelling for the parasite to "walk up and tell us what you got Loki!" 

"That thing's about to go through Hell when it wakes up." Steve said sullenly when they exit the block, feeling a little sorry that it was going to have to live with those people around it, trapped in a place where all are its enemy as all were Loki's before. "It's got no allies and everyone hates it." 

"Thor's certainly not going to show it any kindness." Natasha reflected. "Let's just go have dinner now. This day has been way to long."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


	8. Uprooted

Shouting. That was the first think my groggy mind was able to pick up. There was shouting everywhere, and laughter too. Not like the laughter of the Souls, musical and light, but rather the horrible shrieking laughter of madmen. I thought I heard banging too, and the rattling of glass. My mind was still too caught in the twilight of sleep and wakefulness to really understand what I was hearing, but I knew something was off.

I registered then that I was being carried, my left side was pressed against a very warm, very solid chest, and two strong arms were under my shoulder blades (hand tucked under my right armpit for support) and under my knees. It seems familiar somehow… I think.  
But the yelling was more focused now and I could make out a few shouts.

“-ey got Loki!” I heard a man’s gruff voice shout. More like cackle.

Loki. Where was Loki? Usually he was the first of us to speak when we woke up, always ready to be up and about, but he has yet to comment on anything that’s happening.

 _Loki?_ I called, my thoughts weak and scattered, I was having a very hard time thinking through this haze.

 _Here…_ he replied, though it too was strained.

“What?! Couldn’t get him to listen, had to beat him senseless?! You hypocrites!” the loud reedy voice of an angry female interrupted my already half de-railed train of thought.

 _What…_ I tried to ask if he knew what was happening, struggling now to stay awake, and not let the clouds of sleep swallow us just yet. The thought was hardly there, but Loki understood it all the same.

 _Eyes…_ He thought. He wanted me to open our eyes. To look around. I tried, I really did, but whatever this haze was that kept us drifting- and I knew it was something foreign to my body, I’ve never had trouble waking up, because this body has had too many millennia of practice at waking up at the crack of dawn for it to have been this hard- had made my eye lids so very, very heavy. I did get them open eventually, just a crack. The world was upside down. Well the person in front of me was. My vision was too blurry to tell, but I thought it might have been a he. Then there is a voice, and yes, the he was a he. A very loud he.

“ No! Look at his eyes! The parasites got him! The parasites got the bastard!” Wait. Parasite?

 _Human?_ I questioned, asking if this man was a human, if all those shouts were humans’? No Soul would use such a tone as these people, or such worlds.

 _Yes…_ he confirmed. I felt movement then the hand under my armpit moved, as did the rest of the arm, and suddenly we were looking in another direction. There was a face, very close to ours, clearer than the Loud He.

 _Thor!_ We want to cry, but our lips won’t listen to either of us. Thor is here and he is holding us! Any worry we’d had about our location is gone, it matters not because brother is here and does he not always protect us? He would not let us be harmed. Our joy at seeing Thor, and knowing we with him was short lived though, because for just a second, before I give in and our eyes close, the expression on his face registered in our mind. He looked so broken, so tired, and so, so close to tears.

No, we want to say, don’t cry, don’t be sad. I’m here brother, I brought him back Thor. We want to comfort him. But we can hardly think the words- our mind on the brink of claps- let alone vocalize them.

“Come on, set hi…” came a softer voice that fade out, and was lost on us half way through, our time’s up and we’re about to pass out. Loki almost recognized the voice though, he thought he did anyway, but his thoughts were just as impossibly jumbled as mine.

 _Sleep…_ Loki commanded, he didn’t want to be awake right them, with distorted half-thoughts and a heavy cloud that made movement and thought impossible. He wanted to sleep now, and think about Thor and our situation in the morning (Or whenever we actually wake up next).

I resisted sleep against his better judgment, I want to fight a little long, maybe I can wake up if I just…

“The tranquil…” starts another voice, a pretty female voice that we still could not focused on. The Black Widow, Loki remembers, but that’s not where his mind is struggling to go. 

His thoughts were on what she had said. I feel Thor’s arm shift under us, and then disappeared, he’d set us down.

 _Tranquilizer…sedated…_ he had figured out why we were so out of it. The humans had used one of their primitive sedations to keep us out of it, to keep us harmless.

I was pushing it now, trying to stay conscious, but failing. Just before I give in to the sedation once more, I feel a rough movement underneath us. I think it jerked us to our side, but I couldn’t really feel myself at this point. There is a pause and then-

“… Me, not the parasite.” Came Thor's voice from far away. Or maybe he was close. I could not tell… I couldn’t…

And I was gone again.

\---------------------------

The sound of drums and an electric guitar, stirred me from dreamless sleep the next morning. It’s the introduction to the Led Zeppelin song I’d set on my phone to be my weekday alarm. It was a strange choice, but it woke me up and the lyrics were… interestingly ironic. It roused slowly from sleep, not quite as quick as usual I noted.

 _“Ah-Ah-Aaaaah-ah, Ah-Ah-Aaaaah-Ah!”_ Next came the sing-screaming before the lyrics began, and I was awake enough now to try blindly reaching for my phone, eyes still heavy from sleep.

 _Turn it off, get up and turn it off!_ Loki groaned to me.

_“We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow!-”_

I try to reach to my left, rolling on my back at the same time to get my phone from my bedside desk, where I always leave it to charge over night. As I reached with my left arm, I felt my right one jerk with it.

_“-Hammer of the Gods-”_

My eyes shoot open. Why could I not move!?

_“-Will drive our ship to new lands-”_

I looked around, realizing this was not my room.

 _A prison cell! They knock us out remember!_ Loki realized where we were before I do. And of course I remembered, it is very had to share a mind with another and not know what they are thinking and remembering.

_“-To fight that horde-”_

“Would you turn that off!” Came an angry voice from somewhere beyond our sight. I look to my left, taking in the sight of grey cement walls, a clear wall, and across the hall from us, through another glass wall, I saw a very furious looking man, sitting in his cell, looking like he was ready to rip the head from the neck of any who disturbed him.

_“-Sing and cry-”_

I tried to comply; I move my hands again, to reach into my pocket, where I now realized the music is emanating from.

_“Valhalla, I am comiiiiing~!”_

I couldn’t though. Confused, I raised my arms over my head so that I could see them. They are bound together at the wrists and the crook of my elbows over my navy blue shirt sleeves by neon orange zip ties. The music is still blaring in my pocket, and more people- prisoners too, I realize- are yelling for me to turn of the noise, but I ignored all of it. I could not reach my pocket with my arms bound like this, I would need to bend my elbow out to do that, but they were firmly bound together, so there’s no use.

Lying in the cot, Loki and I assessed our situation.

We started with the obvious. We were in a prison cell. Good, how did we get here? Right, the humans came, and we went running. Well that proved to be useless, look where we are now. I would not have even known this was a prison if it weren’t for Loki, there would be no reason I should either, but Loki has seen the inside of his fair ( or unfair if you asked him) share of prisons, and he knows well what they look like.

 _So they have us prisoner?_ I questioned, staring up at the grey ceiling above me, nervous now, because this is not what I picture at all in my day dreams of kidnapping.

 _Is that not what they do?_ Loki countered. _That is why they come, is it not? To take back what is theirs? And is this not what we wanted? Though I did not think you would actually do it. Run to the humans. I thought your fear would bring you to your senses the second you realized the “barbarians” where coming and did you truly not think this would happen? He does not mean the question to be answered.,/I >_

_“-We are your over loooooooords!-"_

“Would you turn that shit off you _fucking_ parasite!” the man across room us yelled, now off his bed and banging on the glass. I open my mouth to apologize, to tell him I would if I could reach it. As I turn to face him, Loki stops me.

 _Hush! Do not reply to him, to any of them. Turn you head back to the ceiling!_ He hissed his commands.

_Why? Why can I not explain?_

_Because he is not going to listen to reason. Did you not hear him, he called you a parasite. You are the enemy here. They loath you, and I will not have you groveling at their feet, apologizing and begging for approval, especially while you are wearing my face!_ Loki’s voice had reached a tone of anger I had not hard in months. Where was this anger coming from?

_I am not so weak!_

_For a Soul in a Soul’s society._ Loki bit, his words sharp. Sharper than they’ve been in months. He is determined to get his point across. _But here, among humans, you, Fallen Midnight Snow, and your pacifistic, lovey-dovey ways well do us no good. We have no idea what is going on, why Brother and his friends want to bring your kind here, but I do know that I will not have you making us look pathetic in the eyes of this scum. I will not allow you to allow them to think they may yell abuse at you, and I will not have you take it. So you will do as I say for as long as we are here. Do you understand me?_

 _Yes, yes I understand._ Loki was right in some of what he said, we are not with my people. I had not thought about the consequence of going to see Thor. I had not thought that they would take me as their prisoner like they tried to take Soul-Clint on their last attack. What did I think would happen? Thor and I would talk? I would tell him I was sorry, and that Loki wasn’t really dead and we would all walk into the sunset singing Kumbaya? Did I think I would run in to the arms of the humans, and they would let me go?

Clearly Brother and his friends had something intended for us. They would not go through as much trouble as they did getting me if they didn’t have a reason…

And we have not even seen Thor! Well, no… I did not think that is entirely true… Right, right. We’d woken up last night. I focused my energy then on the last memory I had had before the alarm (which has just started the song over, still trying it’s damnedest to wake us up, unaware that it has already completed it job tenfold.) had gone off.

Thor… Brother had been carrying us… _He_ had put us in this cell! Loki and I could not help but feel a little betrayed at this knowledge, but we ignore it, still picking at our brain for the hazy memories…. Let see, Black Widow mentioned tranquilizer, we were not surprised to hear her, Stark had mentioned her name on their first attack, she was their look out. 

We knew that… What else, what else? There was the voice that could not be place. We knew it, Loki had hear it before… we dig harder at our brain, trying to place it. It seems important somehow, like we should not have been able to hear it in the first place. After a failed moment of digging, we move on. Something else, there was one more thing that happened.

Our failing search was quickly halted when new voices are heard, accompanied by several sets of quick-paced boots hitting the metal floor. The stomping got louder, and a second later I saw four people run into view and stop outside our cell. They are dressed head-to-toe in near skin-tight blue-and-black uniforms, heavy looking combat boot, and on their head are helmets that completely conceal their faces.

 _Shield Agents,_ Loki recognized, his worry for our situation peaks up just a bit.

I watched from my bed as one agent stepped to the side and tapped on the side of wall just out of view a few times, he removed a card form his pocket and swiped it on the wall, and as the glass wall slide open the other three agents pull guns from holder that I hadn’t noticed before. The three agents entered our cell and took no hesitation in aiming for me.

My heart started to race and I backed up against the wall as best I could. Why were they aiming guns am me? I had done nothing, I was only laying here!

“-Yeah, we figured out what’s got the prisoners in a riot, Director,” came the voice of the agent who opened our cell, for a moment I thought he was talking to himself, until Loki remembers Shield’s fondness for wireless earpieces. “The Parasite’s got music going- go get whatever’s playing that.” the head agent directed the last part to the others. I watch horrified as they obey, rushing in swiftly.

_“-How soft you fields of green-”_

I gasped in fear, flinching back, and my spin stiffened when one agent, towering over me, shoves the barrel of his gun into the center of my forehead, “Don’t fucking move!” he growls, cocking the gun for emphasis.

_“-Can whisper tales of gore-”_

My breathing hitched, and started coming out in shaky, wheezing gasps when another of the three aims their gun at my head as well, though they were still a few feet back.

_“-Of how we calmed the tides of war-”_

“Okay,” the second ones said, addressing the third agents next to her. “We’ll shoot it if in tries anything,”

_Oh Norns! They are going to kill me! These mortals are going kill me! Loki what do we do!?_

_Calm down, let them take the phone, they are only going to shoot if you make yourself a threat._ Loki is surprisingly calm, though I supposed he had been in too many life-or-death situation for this to be much of an ordeal. I try to latch onto his calm, I take a breath to steady my breathing.

 _Take a breath, it is okay, it is okay. They will take the phone and go, they will take the phone and go._ But when the third agent’s fingers touched my hip, where the pocket that held my phone was, I jerked away. I’d been too concentrated on the two masked agents at my face, and the contact with my hip had surprised me.

_“-On we sweep with threshing oars-”_

The woman cocks her gun, and the first agent adds more pressure with his.

_“-Our only goal will be the western shore-”_

“Sorry, sorry, I am sorry!” I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut and waiting for the man to blow my brains out.

_“-So now you'd better stop-”_

“Don’t. Fucking. _Move.”_ He hissed again. And when the third man reached into my pocket again I still flinch, but he was successful in retrieving my phone for me.

When the three agents had joined their friend at the entrance, having backed out with their guns still pointed to me (did they truly think me such a threat?),the one holding my phone finally shuts the music off.

 _“-For peace and trust can win the day despite-”_ and it’s quiet.

“Fucking thank you!” yells someone from another cell.

I can feel my heart beating in my chest, faster than the beat of the rock song they’d just silenced. I almost died! And all because they wanted a phone! I would have just given it to them if I could move!

 _How dare them! How dare those mortals think they may come and threaten you so! Get up Fallen Midnight Snow! Get up and we will make them regret their actions!_ Loki is furious, for the first time in so long I feel him under my skin, trying to move.

 _What!? Loki, what_ wrong _with you? why was he acting like this? I wasn’t going to attach them; I would stand no chance, even with Loki’s guidance._

 _What is wrong with_ me? _They threatened you because you flinch! You were scared, and they shoved a gun into our forehead! It is wrong, get up and-_

“Yeah, Director, it had a cell phone.” He pauses, and then looks the phone over in his hands “No, no, it looks like a generic Smartphone.” Another pause.

“Will do, Director Fury.” He said and turns to the others. “Okay, he wants us to take it to an interrogation room.”  
Interrogation.

 _Oh,_ Loki realizes bitterly as they entered once again and roughly hauled us to our feet, _they want information, of course._

One of the agents- I’d lost track of which was which when they kept moving, and not talking- knelt down in front of where I stand while two others stood on either side me their guns pointed at my head. The agent at my feet then took out a pocket knife and my back stiffened, without hesitation they brought it to the zip tie around my ankles and cut them loose. But when they went to the one at my knees, and they jerked it through, the knife cut through my pants and left a shallow but long cut up the inside of my knee.

“Ah!” I squeak more out of shock than anything, yes it hurt, but it was small, and Loki’s body has seen worse. I tried to step back, but the agents hold me still.

“Quit your whinnying,” snaps the one who just cut the ropes- the woman- as she rises to her feet.

 _She cut us deliberately! How dare her that little quim! Fallen Midnight Snow! Do something! Retaliate!_ Loki commanded as the guide- shoved, at gun point- us through the halls of the prison, and lower levels of the helicarrier. I don’t respond to him. He and I know that I will not, and _Norns_ they have _guns_ pointed at my head! My breathing is still shaky, and I want desperately to go back to that cell. I am not even ashamed to admit that I was terrified now.

I walked on shaking feet as the four surroundings agents guide me down hall after hall with their unforgiving hands tight around my arms, and _guns_ on my _head._ I was in far to shocked a state, and Loki in to furious a one, to pay much attention to where we stepped, and tripped over my own feet at one point, and when I did the agents held no hesitation in twisting my arms too pull me up before I could fall all the way to the ground. It only served to make Loki more furious, and myself more afraid.

Finally, they led us into the Interrogation Room. It’s a plan room with more cement walls, there's a metal table with a chair on either side, and all are bolted to the floor. The nameless, faceless agents set me down in the chair facing the door, and I sat still as two agents on either side of me produced more zip ties from their belts and tie my ankles and legs to either leg of the hard metal chair. After they’d assured themselves that I was not going to go anywhere the four agents began to leave.

Just before the last one existed he turned around and said “And don’t even think about doing anything _stupid._ They're watching-” he gestured to a security camera I hadn’t noticed, in a corner near the door “-and _we’re_ gonna be right out here.” And with that he turns and leaves, slamming the door shut behind him.

I let out a long, shuttered breath and laid my head down on the cool metal table, looking up at the camera, then down at the crack in the wall that is now at my eye level. I wished they'd freed my arms too, so that I could wrap them around myself because that was all just the most horrid experience I had ever had and I highly doubted I was going to get a comforting gesture from anyone on the carrier anytime soon.

“What am I going to do _now?”_ I whisper aloud to Loki.

 _Well for starters don’t TALK-TO ME- ALOUD!_ He shouts.

 _Why not?!_ I gasped at the sudden force in his voice in our head

_Because you halfwit! Just think! We are in their territory, and had I have told you we are the enemy. You and your kind invaded their world, and I have tried on several occasions to subjugate it. You cannot let them know I am here because they will either assume you are lying, trying to get Brother to protect yourself while leaking information or lead you people to them- you did after all run to them, they will most likely find suspicion in that either way though- or they will believe you, and become even more paranoid, they may think I will take control, and they know I would be a threat. No, you cannot allow them to know I am here._

I had thought of none of that. would the humans really think that way? probably. But keeping Loki a secret defeated half the purpose- if not all of it all together- of being here!

_So I… I lie to them?_

_Oh, for the love of- NO. He moans. _The mortals will see through any lie_ you _have, even if I give it to you. But I assume they have no idea that a person can stay aware inside their mind once you have come along and invade; I doubt they will even ask if I am still here.__

I have no time to ask what I should do if they do ask because just then I heard the lock on the door turn, and I look up in time to see one of the agents enters followed by- to our surprise- not another agent, not any of the hero’s that are here somewhere, but a woman. She looks like she might me in her late sixties, or early seventies, her hair has a touch of grey in her brown, and she looks very tired.

“Give me your arms.” Said the agent- a different one then the others, maybe that forth one that hadn’t spoken?

I hesitate when he pulls out another knife, but lifted up my arms regardless. At this point I felt it was smarter to comply than resists and risk the mortal's anger. Although Loki strongly disagreed, I was the one in control, and I was going to, just as much he him, do what I need to keep us alive. As the agent comes around one side to cut the zip ties, the woman sets a tray of food down in front of me. My stomach growls as I look over the food. It’s a rather delicious looking breakfast.

“Thank you.” I say quietly, smiling up at her.

“Um… You're welcome…” she says hesitantly, giving me her own unsure smile before leaving with the agent.

“Come on Mrs. Parker, let’s go eat in the cafeteria. I’m sure Karolina’s woken Peter up by now, or Molly’s drug him out herself.” He says with a laugh and closes the door behind him.

Loki has no knowledge of the people mentioned, but it is interesting to see that there are more people here than just government agents and superheroes. I took a deep breath through my nose to steady my nerves, and the smell of the food invades my senses and makes my stomach growl. Have I even been this hungry? When was the last time I ate? I reach for one of the biscuits and went to take a bit when-

_Wait! Hold on…This is Monday morning; we did not eat anything yesterday because we stayed up the night before, and slept through breakfast and lunch, so- damn. We haven’t eaten since Saturday night. Alright, but smell it first._

_Why?_ I asked as I did so, ripping it in half and sniffing, and, oh, it was mouthwatering.

_I though it might’ve been drugged, but it is not. Now eat, I am famished._

_What a coincidence, I am too._ I chuckle and take a bite.

I ate both of the biscuits, and the bowl of oatmeal- it was plain, with no sugar or butter, but I wasn’t about to be picky- with my plastic spork rather quickly, as if i had though it my last meal, as well as drank all of the water that had been provided. I figured, after finishing the water, that I would have to use the restroom at some point to day since I hadn't gone since mid day yesterday, but for now I had Loki's magic holding back most of our body's needs. Well I was now that we had eaten and Loki felt he wouldn't be wasting energy using the magic that way. As we'd figured out very quickly after Thor's attack at the tower it took both of us to maintain any kind of spell, it took both of us together because while I controlled our body, the medium which the magic flowed though, the magic itself was every part of Loki's being that I was not, his actual spirit, his actually consciousness, and actual soul. So any spell we would cast, on ourself or otherwise- had to be willed by him, and channeled through me. Most of the time he did nothing with his magic, because it was the one part of himself that he still controlled, and because most times we didn't need it. Now though, he wasn't sure what the humans were going to do, how long before the next meal would be, or if there'd be a restroom break in the near future, so we were allowing a small current of magic to sustain us.

_Really, what do they think you would do with a real spoon? Loki questions in an amused tone after I'd finished eating._

_Something you might do?_ I answer with a question, biting nervously at the tips if the spork.

_Hah, even I can't do anything with a little spoon._

_Maybe because it is metal-_

Our internal conversation is interrupted by another click of the door, and as it opens I quickly pull the spork from my mouth and toss is on to the tray, and just as quickly set my handing in my lap, trying not to look near as frightened as I was. When another Shield agent- or maybe it’s the same one- comes and silently takes the tray from the table. He doesn’t close the door, and as he turns a voice says,

“He didn’t eat the sausage.” And a hand reaches onto the tray to take one of the greasy little links. Loki becomes very aware of this voice. It is the familiar and wrong voice we hear the night before. Wrongwrongwrong Loki’s thoughts scream, no real word forming. His anxiety bleeds into me and so do memories- flashes really- and oh he is right, that is _wrong!_

The owner of that voice turns the corn into the room, and when we see, him- when I see the dead man walking, a mutated scream escapes my lips, because- _NO._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


	9. Panicked

**_I’d felt the ship quake maddeningly the second my little hawk had set his bombs on it, and, just a tangibly, I felt the sweet, sweet chaos it brought with it, the l puny mortals running around in their confusion, scampering around to find answers and solutions and reasons and sources. Oh, I could feel it in my bones and on my skin and it was so, so sweet, even better than the taste of Idunn’s golden apples._ **

**_But I haven’t the time to think on that. My plan is in motion and surely one of the mortal warriors will come soon to see that I remain caged in this chaos soon enough._ **

**_They honestly thought that their little glass cage could hold me? Ha! I stayed because I wished to! I could leave any moment I wished._ **

**In fact… _I teleporte out of my prison to the far side of the room, leaving a clone in my place, and cloaking myself in the shadows to wait. Sure enough, moments later I felt a frantic mind of swirling, panicked thoughts begin rushing my way. It’s easy enough to pick up on who they are as they come closer._**

**Thor. Damn him. _I think to myself._**

**_I open the cage door with a quick motion of my hand just as Thor barges full force into the room._ **

**_“NO!” he growl, when he sees my clone walking out of the cage. He charges, and my clone poses to brace for the impact in the door way. Thor runs into the clone, then he runs straight though him, and falls onto the floor of the cage._ **

**Idiot.**

**_I motion with my hand once more and slide the door shut, trapping the stupid oaf inside._ **

**_“Are you ever not going to fall for that?” taunts a new clone that I’d created on the side of the cage near the control panel. The confusion on his face is enough to send me into a fit of laughter, and while my clone does better than I to hold it back, I have to hold my hand over my mouth, least I give myself away._ **

**_“AAHHG!” He shouts in anger, and swings Mjölnir at the glass. When he hits the glass, and it leaves a large crack, the clasps holding the cage from falling release just enough to jolt him, a warning to its prisoner to stop. My clone chuckled with me as he backs toward the control panel._ **

**_“ The humans think us immortal… Shall we test that?” He puts his hand over the release button-_ **

“NO! _NOOOO!”_ I screamed. I didn’t want to see this! I did not want to see this _at all!_ I tried to pull away, tried to come back to reality, but this memory is too strong now and-

**_“Move away please,” comes the voice of a man as he steps around the corner, in-between me and my clone. My clone pauses in his action and turns to him._ **

**_Now where has he come from?_ **

**_Looking at the man I can see he is clearly not one of their field agents, though he does seem rather calm in this-_ **

**_He is calm! How is he calm? I can feel plenty of, if not all of this facilities works, all of their scattered thoughts, even the Widow girl was an open book to me for a time only moments ago! And even when mortals are not panicking, I can always, always feel that little bit of upset in the back of their minds that simply come with being a sentient being!_ **

**_But from this man I feel nothing. And his wrongness is unnerving._ **

**_“You like this?” he asks, and from my clones eyes I see that he is holding some kind of weapon, that’s design slightly reminds me of the Destroyer from the All-Father’s vault._ **

**_“We started working on the proto type after you sent the Destroyer.-”_ **

**Oh, well then.**

**_“-Even I don’t know what it does.”_ **

**_Still looking thought the clone’s eye I see him charge the weapon._ **

**_“Wanna find out?”_ **

**Ooooh, Well then. _This time the words are play full and malicious._**

**_I step out of the shadows now, very happy that I had thought to hid up until now, and with no hesitation, I take my scepter (the real one, as if I would let them near anything but a fake) to the back of his chest, and oh it the Other did give me such a magnificent weapon._ **

**_“NO!” Thor yells in protest thought his glass cage, as my scepter glides oh-so-smoothly through the man chest. He falls to the floor, still alive, though just barely. I must have just missed his heart. Oh well, it’s no skin off my back if he die slowly, it’s his own fault for coming here.-_ **

“Nonononononono _NOOOOOO!”_ I try to get away; I had to get away now, now, now, now, now! I kicked my legs. I kicked and kicked and kicked until I’d broken free of the zip ties. Then I stood, and looked up- until now my eyes had been down cast- and he was there! He had come closer and he was on the others side of the table!

_Have to get away have to get away-_

“Excuse me-” The Wrong Man said, and reached over the table as if to grab my arm.

“No! Do not touch me! You are _wrong!”_ I take a step back as the shield agents posted at the door enter, guns aimed at me. I trip over the chair though and when I tried to regain my balance I ended up falling to the side on my stomach.

When I flipped onto my back, so that I could get up and _getawaygetawaygetaway,_ I found the four agents surrounding me on all side.

“Don’t move!”

_Oh by the Gods! What do I do, what do-_

_Shield! Shield! Put up the shield! And back into the corner, don’t let any of them out of you sight! Loki told me._ He didn’t even try to hide his own fear. The living-dead, invisible-to-our-magic, wrong mortal was just as frightening to him as all of this was to me.

And even as I complied with his commands, as I scurry backwards into a corner, I realize-

_Oh Gods, you killed that man! You- you- and I saw- and-_

_Oh, like you did not already know I have killed people!_

_But you enjoyed it!_

_Well I regret it plenty now!_

_You do?-_

“Hey, guy, it’s okay. You can leave, he’s not going to doing anything, and you’re just making my job harder.” The Wrong Man said and he stepped around the agents and pushes one back with the back of his hand.

“But agent Coulson-”

“But what? Look at him. He’s shaking like a leaf, and he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, he’s more scared of me than I think I have any reason to be scared of him, plus he’s got the force field, if you try to shoot it’s not going to work.”

 _Shoot?_ Oh they have got guns! I moaned to myself. And “watching them” be damned, I pulled my legs up to my chest and burry my face in my knees trying to be as small as I could manage.

_Loki I want to go home! I am scared! Please, how do we go home? Surely you know-_

“Fine, but we’re right out here.”

I pulled my hands over my head then, as I started to cry that stupid crying of an upset child, with hash sobs and a very steady stream of tears. I tried to stop, this was no time to lose it, but my sobbing is too hard and anytime I tried to stop, to hold my breath or do something, I just ended up choking on my breath. And I was trying so, so hard to catch my breath-

_I cannot breath! Loki help me!_

_Um, uh, I- I do not- uh,_ he is just as confused and disoriented as I am.

 _Oh!_ He thinks, and suddenly-

**_“Loki Dear,” Mother says from beside me on my bed. I have had a rather bad argument the Sif girl, and because brother taken her side and let continue to be rude , I had stupidly kicks her very hard in her knee, and run off to my room to hide. “Why did you kick Sif? That was a very mean thing to do.”_ **

**_I am five by midgardian standard. Kicking and running are my only fighting skills._ **

**_“She was be-being mean fi-i-irsssssssst!” I cry, burying my face into her side, and she shifts so that she can hug me to her._ **

**_“Yes I know. And her mother is speaking to her about that, and I will speak to Thor as well after words, but I want to know all of what happened from you first.”_ **

**_And even though I try to stop crying, to hold it in so I can defend myself before I get in big trouble, I just started crying harder and harder because I do not want to get in trouble at all!_ **

**_“Oh, it’s okay, it’s alright” mother says, pulling me closer and rubbing my back with her hand “shhh, it’s alright.”_ **

**_“I’m s-s-o-o-orryyyyy!”I say, still unable to stop._ **

**_“Count to ten, Loki.” she says suddenly._ **

**_“Wha-at?” I ask, my breath hiccupping halfway._ **

**_“Count to ten for me, until you can breathe, baby.”-_ **

_Count to ten Fallen Midnight Snow._

“…O-one…t-“ I choked on another sob again and had to start over. “One… t-wo-ooo…threefou-our-”

“What’s it doing?” Came the voice of Captain America from out of nowhere.

I looked up then, to see where he was and who he might have brought with him, but the only person I see is the Wrong Man, he’s sitting on the floor now, and only half a foot from my barrier, which is thankfully a good three feet from me. I look at him and our eyes meet and I am too scared to look away.

 _“He was counting,”_ came Thor’s voice from nowhere. _“To ten. It is a trick our mother taught Loki when he was young. He would get upset by things very easily, and would have a hard time calming himself, and an worse one attempting to breath while doing so, so our mother taught him a fairly quick way to calm himself- to count to ten. It seems that the parasite can remember that.”_

Where were their voices coming from!? This is absolutely the most confusing thing!-

 _Oh._ I think.

There is a wireless communicator on his ear. The “they” that the shield agent had mentioned before breakfast that were watching though the camera must have been brother and his friend, and they were listening and communicating through the ear piece on the Wrong Man, and with Loki’s superior hearing, of course we could here, especially with him so close.

I wish he would back away. I do not want him near me, he is- he is-he-

_Count!_

“One… twothree…four… fi-hive, seven- sixseven eight, nine, ten. One…two..thr-hee…four…five, six, seven, ei-ght, nine, ten. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” I take a few deep breaths after I finished count, and the air is so relieving. I never thought something as simple as air could be so beautiful until now, until I’d been so frighteningly deprived of it, and by my own body nonetheless!

“Hello,” the Wrong Man said cautiously. “Are you gonna be alright now?”

My eyes finally focused back on the man I had been looking at that whole time. I backed up a little more subconsciously, even though I knew I could not come closer, even had he been trying.

“My name’s Phil Coulson,” he offers in a gentle, worried tone when I don’t reply. “Can you tell me your name?”

Why is he asking for my name? Surely he has better questions to ask, surely he would rather have more valuable information. Not that I’m going to have it, I’m not a seeker, not  
because Soul-Clint would keep anything from me, but simply because I had never asked.

_Norns, I know nothing! I am useless, and they will kill me, that will slotter me-_

_Stop now before you send us into another panic attack. I_ like _air, thank you very much. Just answer their simple questions for now, if you do not think you should answer then do not, if you do not know the answer just... just tell them you do not._ And I could never miss the scoff of _‘me! Reduced to the truth’_ that crossed his mind, but wasn’t really thought in full.

“…”

“What was that?” he asked.

“Fallen Midnight Snow…’s my name.” I averted my eyes in embarrassment. I have never had trouble being heard before, and not only had I had to repeat myself, but what would the mortal think of my name? I knew Soul names were much different than the humans, and while no Soul would question another’s choice, what would this human think of my name? Would he laugh and say it was stupid? Ask what it meant, as if it could mean nothing?

“Well Mr. Snow, it’s nice to meet you,” he said casually, shifting to sit Indian-style in front of my shield. “I’m sorry it had to be under such… stressful circumstances”

Mr. Snow? Snow is not my last name. It is all one name. Fallen Midnight Snow. One name… but how do I tell him that? Norns, what if I did tell him and he was so infuriated at being corrected that he brought the gun welding agents in and he just lets them shoot me?!

_Now you are just being absurd._

_Well-... So?_ I have now argument, but I still did want to correct him.

 _“Wow that’s a long name,”_ comes Tony Stark’s voice from the communicator _“I now! Let’s call him Tom!”_

 _“We’re not calling it “Tom” Tony,”_ said The Captain.

 _“I say we just keep calling it “It”.”_ That is Natasha.

No… oh, they were all watching me weren’t they?

“You didn’t eat the sausage, did you not like it? It’s been awhile since we’ve had such good quality.”

He’s hardly asking threatening questions… he couldn’t _possibly_ really care that I did not eat the meat.

_He is trying to gain your trust, watch yourself._

“I… I do not eat meat.” I told him, glancing at him quickly then looking away. I am not ready for that. I really didn’t even want to answer his questions, I just know that if I do not answers now, he will simply ask another and another, and probably circle back to the un-answers ones, and the longer I draw this out, that long I have to say here.

“You don’t? May I ask why?”

“thhhheeee, uh, the dragons and the flowers.” I blurted out before I thought my words through.

_No, you idiot! Why would you even say that!?_

_I do not know!_

_Well, it’s not as though they did not already know there wer other species out there…_ he said it with what could only be a very tired sigh. _Just don’t say anymore if you don’t wish._

“The dragons and the flowers? Is that something from Loki’s memories?”

 _“I do not think there is anything within Loki’s memories that connects the fire-beasts to any type of flowers. And especially nothing that would cause one to stop eating meat.”_ I hear Brother say.

I stared at my hands, which were still shaking, as I tried not to look at him. If I just did not look will he ask something else?

“What _are_ the dragons and flowers? Mr. Snow?”

I think perhaps my panics attach was beginning to get to me because I am getting vre tired…

_I do not want to do this._

_Change the subject then, as him something- Asks this infuriating mortal how he is still alive._ Loki told me.

“You died…” I mutter. “You were-because he, uh, in the- in the- in the chest.” I sit up a little and tap my heart with finger tips, still not making eye contact.

 _“Man that thing has a serious stuttering problem.”_ I hear Tony say. _“Way unlike Loki.”_ Came a voice I didn’t know.

 _“Quiet Pete, you're not even supposed to be in here,”_ Tony replied, like he was trying to avoid getting in trouble himself.

_**“Silver tongue turned to led?” Volstagg says as he walks past us on the rainbow bridge.** _

The memory slips past Loki and our shared embarrassment colors our face before;

“Oh, is that why you got freaked out? Because you remember Loki trying to kill me? Ha-”

 _Did he just laugh? About his supposed death?_ Loki and I think this though in unison.

“-no, he did get me stuck I a hospital bed for a few months, but no, he didn’t kill me.”

 _Hm_ Is all Loki says, I can feel he is a little insulted that he did not mange to kill the man.

_What is wrong with you!? I though you regretted killing him!_

_Well, I regret it yes- I get I,t killing is wrong-, but the_ weapon _was- oh you do not care. Besides he is still un-nerving, even you can feel all of the other humans on this ship besides him._

He is not incorrect, now that I focused on it- now that he focused me on it- I realized I could… I could feel all the little sparks from the people aboard the Carrier. It was like a funny little tickle along my skin, it didn’t hurt and it was not annoying, it was almost comforting- if I didn’t concentrate on why I was felling it.

I close my eyes, and I could even tell where each little spark is coming from. There were four outside the door, the four agents. There were, maybe, around 30 on even level with me, that were actually a lot, well, a lot “brighter” I guess, they came from more chaotic minds, from the actual prisoners. Then I concentrated on the ones that I could feel were above me. They were not “glowing”, just enough to tell where the people there at least fifty-

Fifty! Fifty living humans! maybe more... Wow…

Then Loki focuses me on this room. On the wrong man- on this “Phil Coulson”- and there is nothing again. And when the tickling that I knew should be there was gone, I got scared again.

_Why could I never feel that before?_

_Your people are too peaceful, in mind and in body. You never worry and you so rarely stress. Your minds do not panic. There was nothing to feel._

_Is that why you were so jumpy, because you where used to feel people around you, and with mine, you could not?_

_Yes._

I couldn’t blame Loki for that at all. If I had spent my entire life always know where everyone around me was, and having no way for anyone to sneak up on me, I think I too would be extremely frightened if that comfort was suddenly ripped away.

 _Why could I not feel this when brother and Iron Man came? Surely I should have felt the chaos that created,_ I do not like the idea of feeling this pleasant tingle from my friend panic, but I am curious now.

_…I was holding everything back from you… I did not wish to share it then._

_Can't blame you for that._

_I am sharing it now though!_ He says urgently, and before I can ask why he is so eager to make sure I knew he was sharing he is speaking again, jolting up from our private conversation.

“Mr. Snow? Mr. Snow are you alright?”

“Yes,” I said quickly after I had jumped a little at his voice.

“Mr. Snow, you know that I’m not going to hurt you right?”

Not even Loki can tell if this impossible person is lying or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


	10. Interogated

_“Uuuuuhhhhgggg, c’mon Agent, just let us get Doom or Strange or someone to counter the spell already! This is really boring to watch.”_ I wake up to the sound of Tony stark’s voice and it took me a second to remember my situation.

I had been so exhausted after my panic attach, and Phil Coulson had not stopped asking questions once he was certain I was listening. I had not answered any.

From my spot in the corner I had sat for at least an hour, ignoring every one of his attempts to interrogate me for information- it was not rude or demanding, but it did actually… annoy me. In that hour I had checked myself over, as per Loki’s wishes, and found there was a pretty nasty bump on the back of my head and dried blood - _blood!_ \- in my hair- _“You hit your head pretty hard back at the tower, we had Dr. Banner check you out and he said the wound was pretty well healed.”_ Unsurprisingly, Loki and I had both been thoroughly unsettled about having been near the Green Beast. There were bruises, already faded and yellowing, on my wrist, and other places the zip ties had been.

I moved to check the cut the female agent had given me, moving aside the slightly bloodied fabric to see that it had already scabbed and healed. Coulson had shown interest in the cut, asking how I had gotten it, if one of his agents had done it, but like all the other times I did not answer. Of course this one Loki had wanted me to answer, he wanted them to pay, but I feared if I got them in trouble they would come back for revenge. I did not think they were above that.

But after awhile my mind began to wander, and my thoughts would wander until they didn’t make since, and then I would snap out of it and drift back off. This happened a few times until Loki had me mutter a spell- he very much dislikes when he cannot think-, telling me that the shield would stay in place, and I finally fell asleep, curled up in my little corner for who knew how long.

“No Tony, he’ll wake up eventually. Whatever it looks like, this is not Loki and rough handling is not going to work on him. The shield is his security blanket, and ripping that away will not help him trust us.” 

Phil Coulson was still there.

 _Security blanket!?_ Loki scoffs.

 _I have to pee._ I tell him. However longs it has been, it has been too long. And as much as I would have liked to remain in my little sanctuary for the rest of eternity that was just not going to happen was it?

 _Yes I know... Listen, just get up and tell him. Whatever is wrong with him I would rather he take us to a bathroom then have them all see you and me piss ourselves... So you really want brother to see that?_ He questioned when he felt my hesitation.

Oh he was mean.

I shifted, uncurling myself and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I sit up and without turning my head to Phil Coulson I stretch my arms, then my legs and pop my spine and my neck and-

_Quit stalling._

_Fine._

“Sleep well?” Phil Coulson asked when I turned to him. I must have been out for quite awhile, because he’s sitting in a chair now, still right outside my shield, and working on a lap top.( _now what could_ he _possibly be doing on a laptop,_ Loki wonders). I nodded once and then opened my mouth to speak. Then closed it again, and open it again,

“I… I have to us the restroom…” I managed to get out.

“I would imagine, the team took you from the tower-” _why was he so casual about kidnapping?_ “-at two p.m. yesterday, and it’s-” he looks down at his laptop “-almost twelve.”

Almost twelve.

“How about we take you to the bathroom, and then come back here for lunch.”

“We?” I asked.

“Well, at least one of the agents from outside are gonna want to come along- but I'm not going to have them zip tie you again Mr. Snow, it’s just precautionary that they come.”

 _He speaks as if I am even going to let them near me._ I am not letting this shield down. I just needed him to take me to the restroom, and that did not require anyone else.

_The Hel you aren’t!_ And before I knew what was happening, Loki cut me off, and the shield flickered away, leaving me completely exposed. _Now get up._

“See, it not so hard to trust me,” said Phil Coulson- so, so ignorant of our internal conversation- closing his laptop, and standing to set it on the table a few feet away.

_Loki please-_

_No! He was right, you were using the shield as a security blanket, rather than protection, if there is danger I will allow you it back. For now you are going to learn to be brave, and it starts by getting off our ass and fallowing that anomaly to the restroom._ Loki’s tone not harsh, nor was it threatening or mean. He had simply been his own kind of encouraging, I needed to do something, and he was giving me the push I needed in a way he thought I needed it.

Never taking my gaze away from Phil Coulson I slowly began to raise to my feet, ever so slowly I practically slid up the wall, my body began shaking, though not quite as much as before, and when I’m final standing I hear _“It’s aliiiiive! Mwahahahaha!”_ from who I thought might have been “Pete”. And a snort from who is clearly Mr. Stark. Then several reprimands from all of the others about _“being mature”_ and _“this is a work place.”_

“’Kay, just wait there for a sec.” Phil Coulson told me and moved his hand up in a gesture that said “stay put”, then walked over to the door.

“Hey guys, open up,” he shouted, knocking on the door. When it opened he exchanged a few quick words with whichever agent unlocked the door, then turned back to me and beckons me come.

The trip to the restroom- a normal public-looking restroom- was perfectly uneventful and quick on the outside. Whichever masked agent was accompanying us, other than having their gun out and ready, did nothing but walk behind me with Phil Coulson at his side as we walked down a few empty corridors. On the inside, however, Loki and I were again sorting through what needed to be done and said, and what we needed to keep to our selves. He figured that I could essentially tell them anything about my people, because they probably already knew it and would be testing my lying ability (or lack thereof).

I disagreed. If I told them, say, how and how well, out medicine worked in comparison to theirs, they may go on a raid for them and hurt, or the Gods forbid kill, a soul in an attempt to gain it. He countered saying that anything interesting we told them about, if they tried to get it they were going to try when there were no souls around, they could fight their way away he said, but they would want to avoid the attention so that they would be able to come back another time as well. With a little more persuasion in his argument he convinced me that we could probably tell them most of that.

One thing we readily agreed on was that they could not know about Loki, and he also did not want me to tell them any of his memories, as he felt those were none of their business, and would make no difference for them anyhow. And besides, I did not even have any of his adulthood memories, all I knew is what they knew. And Loki’s childhood memories - the memories I did have- were hardly going to be important to them, so the plus there was that I was not going to have to lie.  
By the time we had arrived back in the interrogation room and had sat back in the metal chair (thankfully not tied to it this time), waiting for Phil Coulson to finish his conversation at the door with the agent, we had sorted though most of what I would and would not say, and how I would avoid answering in lies.  
“Well Mr. Snow, lunch will be here shortly,” he said, sitting down in the chair opposite me. “I’ve told them to tell whoever’s cooking to make you something vegetarian, so you don’t have to worry about not eating it- we’ve got a few other vegetarians here, so it’s not a problem either. In the mean time however, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and it would be in your best interest to answer them to the best of your ability, alright?”

I nod, looking down at the table.  
“We can start with the dragons and flower if you’d like, I gotta say, that’s been nagging at me all morning, y’know, what Dragons and Flowers have to do with not eating meat.” he said it like a suggestion, like I had a choice.

_Norns he is persistent._

_He is demonstrating to you that you cannot avoid answering his inquires, no matter how mundane._

_“Uuuuuhhh_ -ther- another. Planet. We souls… colonies.” I began to ramble. “The dragons ate the flowers- sort of flowers- animal flowers- we colonized and ate the flower too- not me though I was a bear- and they’re not animals, like sentient flowers, living flowers, and it was like-like if you ate a human, so they ate the flowers too, and -and burned them alive-because dragons… And I though what-what if animals on other planets are sentient like hosts, some might be, so I do not eat animal. Because what if... and is why I came here… to not eat meat…” My voice trails off when I realized I started speaking of something that was not about the question. That was another thing Loki told me not to do, answer questions that were not asked, because it only lead to more questions.

“You were a bear? And that’s why you came here? Care to elaborate?”

_Not really…_

“The bears… another planet… lots of, lots of snow and ice and, and there not really bears, just um, mammals too, like humans, but they um, they need to eat meat, and when I- when I found out about the dragons on my last term as a bear, I, I decided to come here, when I later found about this world because you do not need meat…to live.”

“Hm. And how many planets have your people colonized Mr. Snow?”

“Nine or ten… or more- a lot, a very lot.” Now I was not ever you proper grammar.

 _You truly have turned my silver tongue to lead._ Loki commented, though it did not seem harsh or angry.

_I’m sorry._

_It’s no matter, it is as you said once, no one is going to think anything of me. Let my tongue be turned to led, for it is your tongue now, and yours to command. If you wish to speak in a stutter, then do, if not Fallen Midnight Snow, then speak up. They can do you no harm, for you have all of my magic at your finger tips should you need it, and I have every doubt in all the worlds that they will attempt to have harm brought upon you for answering the question because you answers in an even tone._ Loki’s words were filled with encouragement, and suddenly I felt much more at ease remembering that they could not touch me if they tried anything, and also to know I at least had one person on my side in this place, and no, I am not alone. I have Loki.

“-Mr. Snow!” Phil Coulson shouted, not angrily, just loudly.

“Huh! Yes? What?” my head snapped up to look at him. Then to the man holding two tries of food. Where had he come from?!  
We have to get back in the habit of being aware of our surroundings. Loki groans.

“Lunch is here.” He said, his tone indicating he was repeating himself. The man- not an agent, or at least not dresses as one- set the two trays down and left after Coulson and I thank him.

“Do you often zone out like that?” he asked taking a bit of the… I thought it might be a turkey sandwich he’d been given.

Did I? Well I did talk to Loki more often than not so…

“I guess so, maybe.” I said, and I was proud of myself that my words came out even and clear. I looked down at my meal, it is three small square slices of a homemade pizza with bell peppers- red and green- mushrooms, and onions, and cold can of coke.

_Well, that actually looks good, I figured they would give us… frankly I thought they might just force you to eat meat to be spiteful._

As I took my first bite of pizza I heard;

 _“Professor Xavier, is there something we can do for you?”_ from Steve Rogers.

_“Well to be entirely honest I came to see the soul-”_

_“My apologies Professor, but I would prefer my brother’s body not be gawked at by all those who wish to see. I am only even allowing the young Peter here because I lost a bet with Stark.”_ Brother’s voice interrupts the professor. Loki’s though are mixed between joy that Thor is looking out for him, and mild exasperation that he even made, let alone _lost,_ a bet about who could see. I was just happy to know he was still there.

 _“Yes, I understand Thor. It was just that I, overheard some of the agents thoughts about how he had a panic attack, and his other behaviors… I came to ask if I might observe him in person at another time.”_ The professor explained himself and the silence that follows give the illusion that Thor was contemplating his answer.

_“If an opportunity presents itself, I shall have you informed.”_

_“That’s all I ask.”_ There was a smile in his voice. _“And Peter, your aunt wants you to come up for lunch.”_

 _I know that name, I know that name!_ Loki thought frantically, trying to figure out where he knew this Professor Xavier from and after a minute his hard work pays off.

 _He must be that mutant teacher!_ Loki share with me a memory of a news paper headline, about a Professor Xavier, and his school for mutants, and how half the school had evacuated leaving another half and some teachers behind. It went on to talk about Xavier’s abilities over the mind and how he was supposedly teaching other mutants to hone their abilities as well.

_He is a mind reader Fallen Midnight Snow! What if Brother allows him near us and he figures everything out? No, that cannot happen. Never! We… We will have to apply more spells to protect both our mind from him._

Loki did not give me even a second before he was bombarding me with memories of books and spell and lessons, and demanding that I allow the magic to flow, and telling me were to direct it, and I could feel then that our minds were working in sync, and by the end of lunch our minds are supposedly hidden behind an impervious wall of magic.

The questions resumed after Phil Coulson-who clearly had not noticed our spell casting from across the table- and I had finished eating, but instead of asking about me or my people he asked “So Mr. Snow, can you tell me how your people managed to capture Loki?”

And because Loki made no protest for this question- _it is embarrassing, but not incriminating, as they think I am dead-_ , I answered with the truth “they did not truly capture him… he was injured and in need of a healer, when he arrived at the healing facility he passed out. My- uh, the souls did not recognize him and so they… healed him. And because they were worried about more human being in the city- they thought a human had hurt him- they inserted me to gain information.”

 _“Did you see that?”_ came Widow’s voice, _“he dissociated himself for the other parasites. He was about to say “my people did not recognized him” but stopped and chanced it to “the souls did not.””_

_“Why do you think that is?”_

_“I’d say that it’s Loki and he’s tricking us, but then it would have been the other way around-trying to associate with them- and he wouldn’t have stuttered at all.”_

But Phil Coulson made no indication that he heard the others and asked “so if it wasn’t any human that hurt Loki, how did he get injured? And couldn’t he have just healed himself?”

_Do you want me to tell them what you were doing? It will make you look bad._

_At this point I died a criminal and Thor still- he still loves me. I care not what the mortals think._

“He was looking for a staff, a very powerful staff- before all of the soul’s colonization actually- and the dwarves were in position of it. When he went for it, in a vault, hellhounds were set upon him, and chased- they chased him though Yggdrasill. They hurt him really horrible. So he came to Midgard- to Earth-, he did not know we had come, and my- the healer inserted me to get the information he did not actually poses.” 

_“The dwarves set hellhounds upon Loki?!”_ We hear Thor shout in outrage. _“They will pay for such actions!”_

There is surprised satisfaction in Loki’s thoughts, like if he could he would sit up a little taller and smiling smugly.

“What did you tell them?”

…

“I told them who my host was, and they knew who Loki was, they still had the mortal's reports of his invasions. The seekers did not need me after that-” I said, leaving out the part about Loki’s yelling “-and I was escorted to Mr. Stark’s tower with the others. I cannot remember anything of Loki’s adulthood though, just his childhood, and bits and pieces of him being here.” I add, trying to add that in before he asked, just to get it out there. Make sure they knew I did not know anything.

“Really? You can't see your host’s memories? Is that normal?”

_Why did you say that, did I not already tell you to only answer what you were asked!? And I do not like how he refers to me as “your host”. That is just rude._

“No, it is not.” I’d been doing a well enough job of keeping my head up, if into keeping eye contact with Phil Coulson, but here was where I put my head down in shame. With my friend in the tower, I had never been concerned about Loki’s blocking me- in the beginning, I did not need the information, and after the first attach, Loki told me anything I wanted to know ( all the stories of the worlds, all the happy ending, ect..), but now with the humans, I feared they would think too much into it, and would pry and corner me- and I would try to lie- and they would know- and- and they would hurt me- and-

Stop! You. Are. Fine. We will have our shield if they come at us. Finish your answers.

“But I can see glimpses. Like with Human-Clint having heart, and when Volstagg said “silver toungue turned to lead?” on the bifrost, and when Thor was on the quinjet in Germany. and you. I think that’s really it-all I remember. And then just kid stuff, like playing King of Asgard and “count to ten Loki” and sneaking around to avoid training. My healer thought is might be a spell. One that Loki places on his mind.” Loki reminded me that Healer Calms the Spirit had though a spell was why Loki was still around, and Loki was now telling me to tell them that. Was I learning how to lie? It made me feel sick to think about it.

“Loki’s magic? And you can't just get rid of it yourself?”

_Corner! Corner! He is trapping you in a corner! I thought to myself._

“No…” there was a pause.

“He’s been answering is full sentences this whole time. We must’ve hit something, keep asking about his magic Coulson.” Steve Rogers commanded.

“But surely you can do some Loki’s magic, the shield stayed up even while you slept, I’d say that was a pretty impressive display of magical control.”

“Just some.”

_That was luck, it staying up, with the way our mind work together… Loki informs me._

_What? You said it would stay!_

_I lied, we needed to sleep, and you do not notice my lies when you are upset. I cannot promise it will never happen again, but know that I am looking after us, and that I will do nothing to lead you to harm Fallen Midnight Snow._

His words seemed sincerer enough, but it still worried me that he could lie…what if he was lying and leading me into danger? But I did not have the time to think on my worries.

“It’s just luck. The shield, when the Iron Man and Br-Thor came, and Soul-Clint...yeah.” I stuttered over my words now on purpose like Loki and I agreed, like he was coaching me through, so I gave them enough to draw their on conclusions, without lying. But it was still making my stomach turn to being doing it, and to people who are master liars themselves.

“Soul-Clint?”

“The soul who came as a seeker kept Human-Clint’s name, so I just differentiate like that in my head.” I looked back up at him.

“Speaking of seekers,” he changes the subject, was this how interrogations worked? Just asking random question whenever you thought them up? 

_Maybe he is talking you in circles and he already had this segues planned out._

“Tell me what kind of weapons they posses, Mr. Snow.”

This time it had not been a question. His did not ask if I could or would. He told me to. And weapons!? Souls do not use- well…

“Uuumm, for the uh, for the most part no soul would use a weapon at all, but I think every now and then a seeker may have a gun on them- but mostly I think you would just corner you and use the sleep spray, to knock you out.” I rushed at the end. “I am sorry I am not a seeker, I do not really know…”

“That’s just fine Mr. Snow.”

 _“It’s so weird to see Loki like this, all timid and eager to please… he’s just a little marionette puppet for that soul- and I am never that kicked-puppy look on his face!”_ Came Mr. Stark’s voice again.

 _Does that man ever shut up?_ Loki questions.

 _“Pull-string.”_ Steve replied, his tone suggesting it was a random comment he had not meant there to be much thought about, but after a brief pause, _“a pull-string puppet.”_ He clarifies. _“A marionette had the strings on the outside, but a pull-string puppet, it’s like a big hand puppet with the strings on the inside- I’m sorry Thor, that was rude of me, I shouldn’t have said anything.”_

_“It is quit alright my friend. I know you meant no disrespect for my brother.”_

There was an awkward silence from them now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


	11. Imprisoned

Phil Coulson’s interrogation lasted all day, and only finished when the woman from the morning- whose name I had forgotten- told Phil Coulson that, yes he has to come up now, and to give this poor dear a break already!

All day he kept up the endless questions, about seekers, about me, about the other planet, and he keep circling back- just as I thought he would- to Loki and his magic, and I answered every one of those as vaguely as possible- Widow’s comments made it clear that they knew I was hiding something though. But there was no yelling or threats, or physical assaults. All-in-all it had not been as bad as I imagined, though Loki told me to be ever wary of the mortals still, and I trusted his judgment in that.

Once Phil Coulson had left, two agents came in to take me back to the prison block. Loki told me it was good that there was less security and no zip ties, it meant even if they did not trust us, someone higher up did not find us quit so threatening. But our lowered threat level only seemed to increase these Agents bravery in there cruelty, and Loki was right, I should always be wary.

The two came in like brutes, silent but fast, and grabbed us by the arms, pulling us up and harshly twisting our arms behind our back. And as they pushed us out the door I begged to Loki because why was he not reacting to this?!

_Loki, the shield! Why will you not give me the shield?_

_They have not gotten the guns out; maybe if Thor sees bruises he will be angered with them._

He was allowing me to be hurt in order to get vengeance on these people! He knew I was not going to struggle, because I did not want them to get their guns, and so he was sacrificing me. I felt horrible betrayed by him in that moments, but as they guided me down the last hall before the prison block, I could not help but remember how fast our bruises healed, and how unlikely it was that Thor was even going to seeany time soon, much _less_ any bruises under our _long sleeved_ shirt.

_Well even so, putting up the shield now, with them touching us, they would be repelled back quit harshly; they would take that as an act of retaliation. The protection of my shield is useless if it pisses the off and we have where to go._ His voice is sharp and defensive, as he was trying to cover up his lack of foresight with the bruises. He was trying to act as though the lack of shielding did not matter, but I could tell how his thoughts were circling around his lack of ability to defend and protect himself, as he was- in his own opinion- nothing but a voice in the back of a head now. How even armed with all of his knowledge on fighting and sorcery he knew I could never defend us in a fight. And how even our very last option, the cowardly one he hated the most, to hide behind Brother, was completely squashed now if the bruises would not be seen.

Loki felt as vulnerable and useless as I did and it was pissing him off, he wished he could move- again he tried, tried to jerk our arms free, to clinch our fist and punch the guards that were holding our arms so harshly, who pushed us into our cell, hard enough to make us fall to the floor, and all the while laughing because “oh look, it tripped!” hahaha.

We fell on to floor, our arms only just coming up fast enough to catch us, least we break our nose, or crack our skull on the grey cement floor. I waited until they finished laughing, until closed and locked the door, and until they left and were _gone_ before I got up off the floor. I sat up on my knees, and massaged my shoulders, which were sore from the odd angle they had been pulled in.

_Get off the floor. You look like a peasant._ Loki demanded.

I ignored him. This day had been exhausting, both physically and emotionally. I had been held at gun point , threatened, had a panic attack, slept crooked so now my neck hurt, learned that Loki could and would lie to me to get what he wanted, got bombarded with question after endless question, had to try to lie, then almost had my arm dislocated! And on top of all of that Loki was still angry with me for no reason. So no. I was not going to move. Besides I… I was too _tired_ to move.

_Stop being difficult._

_Stop being mean! That is all you have done today! Yell and make demand, and wish that you could make threats to those humans, and-and plot ways to get them in trouble, and me be damn if it gets you what you want! What is wrong with you? You have never acted like this, not even in the beginning!_

I started to sob then, the day’s stress finally getting to me. I managed not to cry aloud, even I did not want the others in the prison to hear that, but I could not stop the little hiccups or the tears, or the way my body shook with the effort not to break down completely.

_Because it is in my nature. In my very_ being. _I cannot help it if I become angered so easily here. My… my abilities, to since even the littlest unrest in these people, it is like a psychic link. Even you felt it. The more chaos there is, the more potent the feeling. I do not feed off of it by any stretch of the imagination, but, Fallen Midnight Snow, it affects me. Greatly. The slightest upset in the balance and it will usually tip me over the scale, and I cannot stop how I feel and that fact usually angers me_ more! _I was never like this with your people because there is no constant or long term unrest, so I was free of its influence. And I am truly sorry that you are my nearest metaphorical punching bag, but here, there is a constant swirl of chaos, and even worse they have stuck us with the most chaotic minds- angry reckless criminal. Here, across the whole of helicarrier, their stupid emotions affect me and I apologize but there will more likely than not be plenty more outbursts in the future to come._ I could hear the strain in his voice now as he tried not to hiss or yell at any point in his explanation, and as he tried desperately to get me to understand. Like he had tried to explain this before and no one had listened.

_I had not thought of that. I am sorry for yelling at you too Loki._

Thankfully this time I had not gotten so worked up in a fit that it was hard to breath, so with one good deep breath to steady myself, I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, and started to stand. Loki had realized what was happening to him, and had been attempting this whole day, just for my sake, to control it. Everyone underestimates Loki if they truly think him only capably of cruelty and lies, truly they do. He was struggling here and now, and for no selfish reason, so I stood and went to the bed like he wants, it was the least I could do.

As I sat down on the bed- a thin mattress with a thin pillow, and a thin blanket, all a pale, faded shade of blue- the man from across the hall, who had only just now come into my vision as I turned around to sit on the bed, shouted through the walls, that are by no mean sound proof, and I have to wonder how that even works, with two very solid walls.

“Well, lookie who made it back alive!” His words were in a tone that suggested he was making fun of me, and I do not need Loki’s prompting to ignore him.

“Will you tell me another story?” I whispered to Loki and I bent down to untie and toe-off my grey-red-and-blue converse. Loki had thought it was silly for an adult to get multi-colored shoes, let alone ones with two tongues and two outer layer, but they reminded me of Thor's battle armor… or at least the color scheme did.

_Sure…_ Loki answers tiredly. _How about the time Thor-_

“I sure thought they’d’ve taken you to the medic’s, but boy did you get lucky.”

_The medic?_ I could feel Loki’s curiosity spike, but the man answers before I could inquire on what he meant.

“’Cause usually,” he continued as my head snapped up, “they just take your kind there and try to cut them out!” he started laughing, probably at the horrified expression I knew had formed on my face, then continued to paint a picture of what he’s just said. “ I imagine they’ll do it tomorrow then, they’ll probably have some agents come in knock you out, you’ll never even get the chance to fight-not that I ever saw any of yours do that, and believe me I’ve seen plenty of yours get carried right outta that bed your sittin’ on.

“Yeah, they’ll come and drag you to a medic; they’ll toss you on the table and start carvin’ away! Rip the knife down neck and through your little silver-”

That was it. That was all that I need to hear to know this man was not lying. How else could he know what I looked like, the little silver body in the back of the neck? And surely they would come now, now that they had the information. I was no use to them- in fact would they not think me a bigger threat because they thought me capable of Loki’s magic? Would it not be simpler to be rid of me, to kill me?

And Thor would more likely than not “okay” anything to get Loki back, but there was just no way would they have figured out how to remove a soul from a host body, not with their human minds. This was it then. They would come for me- for us, for Loki and me both- and when they tried to cut me out, we would die. Me when they used the scalpel to sever my body into little silver chunks, and Loki when my one-thousand attachments, so intricately woven into his every part, began unconsciously clinging to him in attempt to stay safely in my host. My attachments would slice through his muscles and bones and brain like knife to butter, and it would not even be on purpose, just an unconscious instinct!

And of course they knew that would happen, especially if they had- oh dear gods! They had done this before! There had been other innocent souls here, in this cell and on this bed, frightened and alone and now they were dead! Their worst crime simply having been in the wrong place at the wrong time!

I got up off of the bed slowly; still much too tired and growing even more so now, and sat on the floor next to my one successfully remover shoe. I was not going to sit in the same spot where previous brothers and sisters of mine had spent their last hours. The man across the hall was still laughing, though I have no idea if he was at me, or his story, or something else. I was going to die, and he was not what I was going to focus on until they came.

_You keep forgetting that I will not allow hard to come to us._ Loki spoke up, thoroughly insulted, and relief flooded through me when I remember that of course Loki will not let us get killed. But still…

_You let them bruise our arms pretty easily._ I retort, pulling my right sleeve up to examine the very dark bruises in the shape of hands all along our forearm.

_A minor hiccup, I assure you. It will not happen again. Now, was I not going to tell you another tail?_ He asked, changing the subject, one because he did not like having his mistakes shoved in his face, but also because he felt just as dispirit to get off the topic of our possible death.

_**“Loki! Brother!” Thor shouts as he enters my room-** _

“Hey parasite, are you listening?!” the man shouts loudly

“Give it rest Bo, you shouting’s getting annoying!” came the same female voice from this morning, from somewhere out of sight.

_Damnit._ Loki groans, and I have to say the feeling was mutual.

Several agents come into view then, carrying trays of food, and all but one passed by our cell completely. This agent stopped at the man’s- Bo’s I was guessing- cell and asked “So Bo, you want pizza tonight?”

Yes that was definitely the female.

“Well, to what do I own this little pleasure?”

“It.” she gestures to me “turns out it don’t eat meat, but I figure you disserve a special treat more than the body snatch.”

“How could I say no then?” He replied with a smile. He was going to eat my food, and he knew why it was mine, and he knew it was mine! How could he do that? I felt strangely angered by knowing this. I mean, really, should there not have been some line even humans would not cross?

_It is called resentment,_ Loki informs me of the term of this new emotion.

_Good to know,_ I said sarcastically… did I really use sarcasm? Norns I needed to sleep, I was in a foul mood.

_You? A foul mood? Hardly._ Loki said, like it was the most ridiculous thing on the planet.

I looked up when the agent turned to my cell with a tray that held a bowl-of-something and a bottle of water. I did not move as she crouched down on one side, in front of a little sliding door in the corner of the glass wall. The sliding door was just big enough to for the tray and bowl to slide through, but she had to slide the water bottle in on its side. Of course I did not move until all of the agents had finished and left, but I did watch as Bo made a show of eating my pizza- the same pizza from the afternoon I was guessing, probably reheated for dinner.

Loki was a wordless fury in the back of our head. He was absolutely outraged that someone would abuse their authority and in such a way that would allow a prisoner to starve, and he was just as annoyed at Bo for the obnoxious way he was showing off. Loki did however, manage to refrain from actually suggesting I do something about it.

When all of the agents had walk back past my cell, and Bo had started making obnoxious moaning sound, probably in attempt to make me jealous, I pulled off my one forgotten shoe and crawled over to the tray in the corner. Looking in the bowl I find that no wonder they were supposed to be giving me leftover pizza. In the bowl I found an admittedly nice looking stew, it did not look like it was just thrown together carelessly, but it did have rather big chunks of meat in it. Great. Too tired to bother even being upset, I grabbed the water bottle, and roll I had not notice before, and went back to the side of the bed.

I finished the roll within a minute, as it was slightly tough, but still just a roll, and guzzled half the bottle, before Bo actually started trying to talk to me again.

“Come on Parasite! You’re not gonna waste that food are you? That’s not like your kind is it? Or are you just too good for prison food?” is this man an idiot? He knew exactly why I was not eating it. I ignored him.

Rising to my feet, I decided that even if other souls had been in this room before, my avoiding the bed was not going to do anything, so I plopped down in the uncomfortable thing, and pulled the blanket over my head.

_Finish the story please,_ I requested. I knew it was far too early to sleep, but this day had been long, I was tired, and there is nothing better to do anyway.

Loki starts the story and together we easily drown out Bo’s yelling.

_**“Loki! Brother!” Thor shouts as he enters my room.** _

_**Looking up from the book I am reading at my desk I see that Thor does look rather distraught.** _

_**“Yes Brother? What is it? I am quite busy studying.” I say. Though this might actually be worth hearing if it has Thor in just a fit, but then, it is**_ Thor _…_

__**“Those little elves, to sons of the diplomat father invited for the feast this evening, have stolen Mjölnir, and they refuse to tell me where they had hidden her!” Thor looked on the verge of tears, and I have to refrain from laughing, because big, strong, almost an adult, warrior, Thor cannot even best a few little elf children.** _ _

__**“And why, pray tell, have you need of me then?” I have already decided to help him, he is my brother after all, but whatever his needed me to do, a little bit of teasing could hurt too much.** _ ****_

_**_**“You are good with words, surely you could convenes them to return her.”** _ ** _

__**I stand and stretch, walking towards that door. “Well, where are the little monsters then?"** _ _

__**“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you Loki!” Thor beams.** _ _

__**Thor drags me through the halls of the palace, to one of the guest wings, and to one of its lounges, where the two diplomat’s sons are playing some cat-and-mouse chasing game around the room, over the couches, and under the table. But when they see the two of us the immediately stop. And come over.** _ _

__**“So are you gonna do it Prince Thor?” oh, had they already made a deal and Thor was trying to get out of it?** _ _

__**“I hear you two managed to steal Mjölnir from my dear brother, yes?” I say, crouching down to eye level with the two.** _ _

__**“Yeah and we are not going to give it back until we marry a pretty maiden.”** _ _

__**Well that is just adorable, they want to play wedding.** _ _

__**“Well Thor,” I say, standing, and not even trying to get rid of my shit eating grin, because it is just too cute “why do you not just play with them and get the hammer back, I am sure Sif will be willing if you offer her, say, a new sword.. Or three.” I snicker just a bit more.** _ _

__**“But brother, it is**_ I _who they wish to play the bride.”__

__**“Yeah, and Prince Loki can play a bride too!” one of the little elves shouts, gleefully jumping up and down.** _ _

_**The things I do for you Thor. _I sigh in my head._** _

__**“Well we can either play with the children,” I whisper, “And, should we get caught, look like good well behaved princes, who are willing to play children’s games out of the kindness of our hearts, or you can go explain to father how two little children have bested you so thoroughly.”** _ _

__**With an exasperate sigh, Thor agrees we tell the two boys we will be right back.** _ _

__**On our way to find Sif, to ask her to play the priest, Thor asks me “ why in the nine realms are you so willing to dress like a girl, I know you are interested in women’s magic, but a bride?!”** _ _

__**Ignoring the comment on “women’s magic” I answer “They are children. It is a game. I find no shame in playing with children, whatever the game. Besides, one day we will each be fathers ourselves, what will you say if you have a daughter and she asks you to have a tie party with her in a public garden with all of her favorite dolls on one of your free days? In front of all of your warrior friends even? Will you tell her no? That you are a man with no time for girly thing? Just think of this as practice for that. Because I promise you would not have the heart to tell her “no”” Thor is silent after that.** _ _

__**We quickly find Sif on the training grounds, and explain the situation, asking if she will play Priest. Once she finished laughing she quickly agrees and we head back to the boys make-shift play room.** _ _

__**“Wait, wait, you guy have to wear dresses, or else you cannot be proper brides!”** _ _

__**Sif starts laughing again, and so do I as I magic Thor’s and my clothes in to dresses- better to get this over with already- before Thor can even begin to protest.** _ _

__**And then the “ceremony” begins, Thor and I knelling down to be at eye level with the boys, and Thor… turned into a talking fish… and Sif, a fairy... And...** _ _

_We fell asleep._


	12. Discussed

We were not bothered by agents for the next three days. No one came to escort us to an interrogation, or the medic. Food was given three time a day, each day by a different set of agents- I could tell because only the ones on the first day had actually warn their helmets- who were all, if not nicer, much less angry then the first. I was not given meat again, for that I was thankful.

In all of the cells there was a toilet in the corner, behind a half-wall provided to allow some form of privacy, though it did no good in quelling the embarrassment. On the second day, Loki and I had wonder if these people- if we really- were ever allowed showers, and we found our answer in an overheard conversation the next day, which was more like a who-can-complain-the-most contest about all of the inconveniences of being here, between the prisoners that shower day was on Sundays, which meant we had missed ours for the week. Loki found that thought of only showering once a week highly disgusting and I had to agree.

By the time Friday- our fifth day here- had rolled around, Loki had exhausted all of the stories he could think of (and had finished the one about Thor's hammer), Bo had found more things to harass us with, and I had memorized the names of the other fifteen prisoners and matched them with their disembodied voices (as I did not move to the front of m1y cell to see them or join any conversation, and they made no attempt to include me).  
When I woke up on Friday, it was not to the usually banging (not an angry bang, simply the kind meant to be loud enough to wake me up) on the glass that came with an agent sliding breakfast through the little door and taking the old tray, but simply because I had slept long enough and I was awake now.

Odd.

Turning around on the bed to face the glass wall, I stretched to pop my spin, and then sitting up. Bo was sitting on his bed, reading some book I had seen him with several times throughout the week, but had never tried to ask about. Even making eye contact with Bo usually got me some gruesome war-horror story that made my stomach turn.

Looking further down I found a tray with a couple of small waffles sitting on the floor. Getting up, I quickly retrieved it and sat back on the bed. This, of course, easily gained Bo's attention and he looked up from his book to say “G’morning Sunshine!” in a sarcastic voice. I had managed to whole week not to say anything to this man, and as annoying as being called “Sunshine” was every morning, this was not the day I would break that streak.

Picking up one of the waffles I found that they had certainly been there long enough to have cooled, so while I did eat them I did not find them as pleasant as I might have.

 _We should go see what is going on. They should not have left us down here for so long._ Loki said suddenly. 

_We should go see? And how, exactly, do you propose we do that? I mean I am sure you know a way to escape, but if we left I bet Bo will sound the alarm; call the guards or something. We would not make it very far, and that is not going to look good, us trying to escape._

_You are very forgetful._

Loki then reminded me that we could make a clone and cloak it in magic to see what all of the mortals were doing. He also reminded me that this way Bo would have nothing to shout about, because he was already used to our silence.

_Why do you want to know what they are doing? Will they not tell us when their plans involve us?_

_No. No they would not._ He replied impatiently and showed me how to mask our clone in shadow-magic.

Closing our eyes we found that there were a few large groups scattered about the ‘Carrier, with the largest being about fifteen people in what we were pretty certain was a conference room- Loki compared to general location to his memories of the helicarrier blueprints he had gotten from Human-Clint.

 _Why were you just waiting to do this now?_ I asked before fallowing Loki instructions on how to direct the magic- not that I needed it, once Loki showed me anything, I knew it as well is he himself did- to get us to the group of humans.

_Because I was trying to give them time, but surely as long as we have been here they have had enough time, besides it is always better to know what the enemy is planning. We may need to escape before- well before they come._

He did not finish the sentence they way he wanted to, but I knew he was about to say “before we can see Brother”. He did not say it, and of course I did not call him out on it, but he had been waiting this whole time for Thor to show up, or for them to come and take us to see him. But I could also feel the apprehension in him about having been here so long, he knew to longer we stayed, the more chance we gave them to try something and our survival took priority over all. He wanted us to have a chance to escape- steal a quinjet or something- before they even knew we were gone.

So I set my now-empty tray back by the glass, and came to sit back on the bed. Leaning against the wall behind me, I concentrated on projecting myself invisibly near the group of fifteen.

It turned out the conference room we found ourself in had been converted into a play room with a three dart boards in a corner with toy bows and arrows in and around them, a shelf full of arts and crafts supplies( with glitter scattered haphazardly around it) and a TV mounted on one of the walls. Around the big conference table in the center of the room sat fourteen of the people, or rather, teens and children, Loki and I had sensed here, and standing up in front of them, next an easel, with a marker in hand, was a girl probably around seven or eight.

That froze me in place. These were _children!_ I did the math in my head quickly, and then used Loki’s memories of how long he had been away just to double check.

The Souls had been here for decades, yes, for research in medicine, historical records, and things like that, but the first shipments of hibernating souls had not arrived until only a decade ago. We had been halfway through full occupation, and the humans had discovered what was happening eight years ago. The planet had been fully colonized- minus the few rebel clans- six years ago. That little girl was seven. All of these children, as the oldest could not have been more then seventeen, and the youngest around two, had likely->i>definitely- had to deal with the fear of their own lives, probably had to live on the run, had to live in hiding, and _fear for their lives_ , for _most of their lives_ because of _my people._ The pain of the realization cuts sharp in my chest as I watched them play, seeming so happy and unaware- though I knew they could not be- of the enemies right outside their doors.

Watching them it did not take but a minute to figure out that they were all playing a game of Pictionary, and while I would have loved stay, to see who won, and what the little girl was drawing, after my new revelation I could not bear that though. I wanted to be out of here. This was not what was looking for, and I did not need more evidence of how much of monsters my people were shoved in my face.

 _And we really haven’t the time here to waste._ Loki said, I had almost forgotten him in that moment, but of course I should not have, and with the reminder of his existence I felt a new wave of displeasure-his own displeasure of seeing these children, acting so happy when they really should not be able to.

Speaking of time though, I looked around the room for a clock. Time was a funny thing, it’s completely relative to the planet your on, and how your raised to understand it, but no matter where you are, not know has a way of gnawing at your brain. There was a clock up on one wall and looking up at it we found that it was nearing twelve-thirty, which meant lunch would be delivered soon. We would have to be back in our cell by then, or they might find my lack of movement suspicious.

Fallowing the pull of Loki’s magic to the next nearest gathering of people earnestly out of the room, we found ourself just down the hall in another conference room. The atmosphere made a complete one-eighty for the happy-go-lucky of the children to a suffocatingly tense, created by the people we had been looking for- and now found.

Sitting around the room’s conference table, locked in a clearly serious discussion were eleven adults. At the head of the oval shaped was Director Nick Fury, his face every bit the scowl Loki remembered, but instead of the black leather uniform I saw in Loki’s memory of the man, he was wearing normal, everyday clothes. In fact, everyone else was too. Phil  
Coulson, sitting next to Director Fury, was not wearing the suit he had on Monday, and neither was Susan Richards, the Widow or any others wearing the uniforms Loki usually saw them in.

 _Well I guess there is no point in dressing up for a meeting when it happens at your own home, and there is no one to impress_. I think to myself sulkily.

“-but c’mon, Nick, it’s different this time.” said Mr. Stark form his chair, his back to us.

“Yeah? How so Tony?” Director Fury asked in a tone that suggested he did not really believe it was.

“Well for one, Its _host_ is _Loki,_ and Loki is still Thor’s brother-”

 _Oh good, they_ are _talking about us,_ Loki thought. Great, there were talking about us. I leaned agents the wall, getting ready to be here for a while.

“-and, hey, Thor-” my head snapped around to fallow Mr. Stark’s gaze at hearing Thor’s name to where he was sitting at the end of the table, looking strange in Midgardian clothing, and very uncomfortable about the topic of discussion

Seeing Thor there, only steps away, I wanted to cry in relieve and run to him. I wanted to drop the spell and drop at his feet and tell him how sorry I was for what I had done, and beg for forgiveness, because it was Thor, and he was there. _Right! There!_

Loki was more emotional too about seeing Thor in person too, than he believed he would be, and it was only at the last minute that he managed to stop us-as he was in just as much control of our clone as I was- before we did. Oh yes, he wanted to drop at Brother’s feet too, and beg forgives, though for different wrong doings than I, but he held us back despite it, and I quickly gained a hold of myself as well. It would not do to expose ourself here and now as much as we both wanted to.

Our brief internal conflict distracted us, and we never heard what Mr. Stark was going to say. Luckily Thor’s reply clued us in.

“No, my parents, despite much prompting and the gossip of the court, have never disowned Loki. He is still very much a Prince of Asgard.” Thor added at the end.

 _They have not disowned me?_ At this Loki was highly surprised. If ever a member of any family- however low or high their status in the public’s eye- committed any act of treason upon Asgard or her people, they are always, always disowned and if not executed, exiled to the farthest reached of Yggdrasill. To know that he had not been disowned was absolutely heart retching for him, and it sent a new wave of longing and sorrow through the both of us.

But that information was new to me, as I had still to see any of Loki adult memories, and it was not until now that I was actually made curious about what could have happened to change Loki from such a happy child into a… Criminal.

 _You committed treason?... How so?_ I do not think I had actually wanted to know, but the words had been thought before I could stop them.

 _I am going to let you_ think _on whether you actually want to know that, but for now pay attention._ Was Loki’s answer regardless.

“See,” Mr. Stark said. “We can't send “Mr. Snow”-” He said the name like a joke, looking briefly to Phil Coulson “- to the medics, not if there’s a possibility that Loki dies. We’d be killing a Prince. There’s no way that could go over well.”

“Why are you so intent of keeping It alive Tony?” questions a rather worse-for-ware looking man who Loki and I did not know.

“Because he wants to befriend It, he thinks it would be fun to have a parasite as a friend.” Said Widow flatly from next to Steve Rogers.

“I think we could learn a lot more from it-him if we could gain his trust. No weapons or interrogation room. He clearly knows a lot more that he’s telling us, but I think the environment freaked him out.” Steve Rogers pitched in next before the argument over Mr. Stark’s intentions could commence. An argument Loki and I could feel very potently in the air and under our skin.

But on the other hand, of course I would give them anything they wanted- well most anything, as there were still things I had to keep secret- but I liked that at least a few people were not all for my immediate death.

“The Captain has a point sir,” agreed Phil Coulson, who then added, “This Soul was a lot more open than any others we’ve had. He answered almost everything. With a little more trust he might start telling us things we don’t even ask for.”

Director Fury sat quietly thinking this over.

“I think we might have to deal with the fact that the host is Loki before we move on the getting information.” Said a man in a strange looking wheel chair, who we recognized for the newspaper memory as Professor Xavier. Loki had a brief moment of panic at seeing him, and rushed to assure himself that the mental barriers were still all in place, but he calmed after I pointed out that we had been here for several minutes and he had yet to noticed us.

“I mean,” he went on, “surely Thor’s parents are going to need to know what happen to their son. They might want the soul handed over the Asgard’s custody as soon as possible.”

 _Oh gods no!_ Loki thought in an all out panic.

 _What?_ I asked, I knew going to Asgard was definitely a bad thing, with plenty of people there that hated Loki, and his parents would surely want to inflict so form of punishment onto me for having killed their son, but that did not seem to be were Loki’s thoughts were focused.

 _Even if my mother and the Allfather still care for me, once Thor explain they will think I am dead, and will either get us killed trying to remove you, or have you executed for killing a member of the royal family! There is no way they will listen to anything you have to say, and even if they do, they will think it is a lie!_ Loki and I did not have time to think on Asgard any farther than our panic because Thor confirmed the professor’s suspicions.

“Yes, I will have to bring him to Asgard sooner or later.” Thor said, seeming deep in thought.

“So, we come up with a way to get more information, then we send It off to Asgard, and It can be their problem? That sounds good to me. We don’t have to worry about killing a prince, or It finding some way to contact Its people-for very long anyway- and giving us away. Win-win the way I see it.” said the “rather worse-for-ware” looking man from earlier.

 _No, no, no!_ Loki and I thought in unison.

“Yeah, I like that plan the best. Our planet’s already gone, I don’t need the wrath of the gods descending on us because we killed there angry kid.” agreed Ben Grimm. the giant orange… thing, if you will pardon the pun, who had remained silent throughout these mortals meeting.

After Ben Grimm’s proclamation of agreement, the others around the table all gave their hums or nods of agreement. It was settled then, we were safe as long as we were useful, and then we were dead. I mean, I knew I could think of thousands of things to tell them, but these mortals would only be interested in so much. And then even if they did listen to everthing I have to say I would still run out, and then it would be off to Asgard and we would die.

_You always jump to the conclusion of death, I-_

“Ooh! Okay! Now that that’s settled,” Mr. Stark interrupts whatever it was Loki was going to tell me, and I focused in the human, “I found some really cool stuff on his phone! Hey Jarv, pull of the neat little case files we found thi-”

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

The loud banging of a masked agent pulls mine and Loki’s consciousness back to the cell, were upon looking up we found an agent wearing one of the helmets was in the motion of standing up after clearly having just slide a new tray of food into the cell. Of course I could not tell for certain, but at seeing the masked agent I figured that they were one of the ones from Monday, that it was this group’s shift again, and this was likely why I had not been woken up this morning, that they had not cared enough to wake me.

The agent did not give me any time to thank them before promptly leaving, and I was glad of that because I would have said thank you, as it was only polite, but I found that I honestly had no desire to be polite to that person. Living with these humans was really starting to put me in a constant start of either annoyed, or on edge, or some other negative feeling that I had never had cause to feel before, and being inside Loki, whose very being emphasized these feeling ten-fold never ceased to make it worse. But it felt even stranger to me that after only a mere week I was so used to it that I did not even fake surprised at the foreign emotions. That person annoyed me, and I was annoyed, end of story.

Loki and I quickly debated on whether or not we should return to the meeting, while I wanted to go and find out what it was Mr. Stark had found on my phone, Loki insisted that it could not be anything of importance, and that we already had the information we needed. I wanted to bring up the argument that we could see Brother if we went, but quickly squashed that idea before it could even full form. Loki was right, we had more important things to think about, and they needed to be thought out right now, there was no time to fawn over Thor.

 _We need to escape. We cannot wait around until they are finished with us; it may be too late by then._ Loki said.

 _We cannot Loki. We have nowhere to go._ I said, and I was devastated at how true those words were.

I mean of course if we did find a way of escaping, through one convoluted miracle or another, I could go back to the souls. But then they would ask question. Where had I been? Well obviously they knew I was with the humans. Did I know where they were? They would know I knew where they were, how else would I have been about to get back. Though now that I thoughts about it I really did not know where the helicarrier was at this moment, no seekers ever did really, the human did very well to hide it, but by the time I got back to society I would have some general idea.

And even if I did manage my way around exposing brother and his friends, there was no happy ending for Loki and me. With the way I left, my last words to Raining Star Dust, “I Am going to see my brother,” so viciously snapped at her, and the fact that both my healer and my seeker knew about Loki, there would be no getting around the assumption that Loki had taken over, or that he was manipulating me. I had been allowed to keep Loki as my host only in the beginning because it would have been rude and cruel to remove me against my will with no real reason behind it, but after _this,_ they would not trust a word out of me. They would have me removed, and reinserted, then completely disposed of Loki all together. By the time I would be able to protest, it would be too late. I knew that the souls would not do any of this out of anything but concern and worry for my well being, but there was still no way that I would allow it to happened. So no, we had nowhere to go.

Loki turned the new information around in his- Our? His?- head for awhile.

 _Shit!_ He screeched after an hour. He had exhausted every possible option we had for escaping alive, and could find almost none, and he few he did find, such as living like a _hermit_ in a forest all alone in one random realm or another did not appeal to _either_ of us.

_It is death for us on all sides! If we stay here, they kill us in attempted removal. If we go to Asgard they kill us by executing you, or attempting removal. If we run to another realm they will recognize me immediately- as I am a wanted man in every realm- and they will not even have a clue about your existence, even with the eyes, they will just think it was an attempt in disguise! They will kill us on site! Shit shit shit shit shit shit SHIT!_

_Swearing suits you ill._ I tried to joke, plopping my head down on the stupid blue pillow, and stretching the rest of my body out on the bed.

“Going back to sleep already!?” mocks Bo.

 _Do not try and make a jest of this!_ Loki hissed. _We are going to die if one of us does not think of something! This is no time for jokes!_ Loki thoughts trailed off into a wordless rage in the back on my head, still trying to find some way for us to survive.

 _Sorry,_ I replied. I did not think it was fair for Loki to blow up at me, but I understood his frustration, and that I was his only real outlet.

I laid there on the bed for a minute, as there was literally nothing else to do, before turning my head into the pillow and letting out on long moan of frustration before I started to cry. I knew now that if I did not watch myself I might start hyperventilating again, but there was really no way I was going to hold back the sobs escaping my lips. This was it. We were going to die. There was absolutely no getting around it this time. There was no magic spell. No lie we could tell- or rather I could try to tell. There was no one on our side, and there was nowhere to hide.

_I do not want to die Loki._

He did not respond, having moved on somewhat from his own fit of rage to join me in mourning for us pointless end.

 _And I am not even going to get to apologize to anyone._ Loki thought to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


	13. Confused

The both of us were silent for a long while, coasting along our shared memories, and exchanging personal ones, though my memories from the Mists planet were hardly of interest to Loki, and the only new memories Loki could come up with were things like boring dinner parties and tutoring session that he thought I might like. I was glad, when diner time came around, that I had eventually gotten around to eating the lunch they left us because when the masked agents came with dinner, dinner was not given to us. No, it was given to Bo. Again.

 _Damnit! How dare them! Why do they keep doing that? Taunting us with food!_ Loki exploded in my head as the last guard crossed back past us to leave.

_Because they are human, and we are the enemy. They do not like us, and they want me to suffer-_

_Yes, yes, I know, I know! We are very lucky they do not try to physically harm us in here either, but it is still_ infuriating. _It is an abuse of power, and it is senseless, and what do they even hope to gain by doing it?_

He had not meant the question to be answered, he was just ranting because he knew I would listen. I tried to distract him instead, rather than let him continue and grow even more upset about such a simple thing as food- the way I saw it, new agents would come tomorrow, so what was one night without a meal anyway- by saying;

_What do you think Brother is doing right now?_

_Probably eating dinner with the rest of his mortals._ Loki said. He knew what I was trying to do, but he was thankful for the distraction and questionlessly changed the subject.

I had an idea then, but I hesitated to ask, as I thought Loki might think it was silly. I thought that maybe if we concealed a clone, we could find the mortals and maybe just see what Thor and others were doing. Of course me trying to hide anything from Loki was like trying to pretend he was not there, it was extremely stupid and pointless.

 _But that is a brilliant idea!_ Loki was all for it. _We would get to see brother, and see if the mortals are plotting anything to do with us anytime soon._

I was surprised at the intensity of the joy in Loki’s tone, for such a good while now he had been nothing but negative and upset, and this one-eighty in personality was bizarre. Loki’s thoughts became colored with embarrassment when he realized this, and he tried to cover it up by saying _It was just a rather good idea, you rarely have those, it was a nice change._

I knew that obviously was not it, but it was hardly my place to question Loki, or try to embarrass him, so I just closed my eyes as saw where near all of the mortals were. They were where the mess hall was meant to be, just like we figured. Rolling from my back onto my side so I was facing the wall, to make it look like I was sleeping, I sent an invisible clone in that direction, closing my eyes to the cell wall and opened them again to a room full of people.

The room we found ourself in was definitely the mess hall. All around the room were metal tables- some circular, some squares, and some long rectangular benches all connected together-all around the room, as well as booths all around the walls. On the far side, near the back wall was what looked to be several very long buffet table surrounded by people filling their trays with various foods.

There were other humans everywhere in the room too, either sitting around a table, walking up to the buffet, or walking back from it. In one of the round tables near the back- near us- was Susan Richards. She had just sat down with two of the children we recognized from earlier in the day to be the seven-or-eight-years-old girl, and a ten year old looking boy and it was not hard to guess that they were her children. Also sitting at their table was Ben Grimm and a teenage boy, who after we heard his voice we recognized as “Peter” for the interrogation on Monday, and the elderly women from then as well, whose name we heard again was called May, though everyone seemed perfectly happy calling her “Aunt May”.

Slowly walking past them- so as not to make physical contact with anyone walking around me- I started looking around for were Thor might be sitting. As we searched we found a table full of teens happily chattering, another with Victor Von Doom- still wear his metal mask, and not actually eating anything- sitting with a few other, not really seeming interested in the company of the table. Director Fury was sitting off in one corner of the room with Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, and three others we did not recognize, laughing at some joke we could not hear from across the room that one of the unknown mortals had made.

As I walked around the room, recognizing some faces and watching them confers with others I did not, I realized just how much I missed this sort of interaction. For a week now I had been completely isolated- Bo and the others did not count to me, as they did not actually want to talk to me- from the world and watching everyone here make jokes and conversation made me realize just how board I had been in that cell, virtually all by myself. It truly felt nice just to have all of these happy people around, even if none of them knew I was there.

Just as I was pushing my desire for society to the back of my head- it would do no good to wish for another something I had no way of getting- I passed another one of the many support pillars scattered about the room and finally spotted Thor. He was sitting in one of the booths in the far corner with his friends and I swiftly made a b-line for him.

Sitting at Thor’s table all looking completely at ease as they ate were The Widow, Mr. Stark, Steve Rogers, Ms. Potts, and- much to our dismay, and I did take a step back at seeing him- Bruce Banner. I had only caught a brief glance at what the man could do, but the physical pain of the memory was enough to make me shy away. We stood by the table and watched them talk about this and that for maybe ten minutes before the dullness of the conversation began to bore Loki immensely. Thor was not really saying anything, just listening along to Mr. Stark and Bruce Banner have a debt on…. Something to do with physics, I had to admit I was not all that interested in them either.

 _Let us go find something else observe,_ Loki said suddenly. All this time away from Brother had Loki missing him quiet a lot, but even he was not interested in watching him just sitting there. As he said this he started pulling us in another direction, but I quickly rooted us in place.

 _Wait, can we not stay for just another minute, he might start talking,_ I asked like a whining child. Oh. Now I whined too?

 _No. Come along._ He said, dragging our feet in another directing, reveling in the fact that it was _he_ who was moving us. _Besides we can see him another time. Later. Definitely. Soon._

 _But-_ I tried once more to stay.

_No! I want to move!_

Oh. This was not about the boredom Brother was creating; Loki wanted to _move_ because _Loki_ could move. I remembered Loki’s joy from only seconds ago, and decided he disserved to control the situation much more than I did.

_Alright Loki,_

Letting Loki have control was the strangest experience of my life. It was frighteningly unnatural to be able to feel my body moving, but not being the one willing the movements. It was not like being jerked around like the puppet Steve Rogers suggested we were, it did not feel like it was any one else at all. I could feel every part of myself, feel every muscle in my legs move as Loki walked, and the pressure as my feet as he took each step, but I was not willing it.

I began to think it felt like floating maybe, like I was just going along for some ride, and I had to ask, _is this how it feels for you Loki?_

Loki had just been wandering around the room for the last minute, and by the time I had stopped focusing on how odd I felt, he had made it over to the buffet and was looking aimlessly at the foods it held. 

_Essentially, yes._ He answers.

 _I am sorry you have to be stuck this way._ I was not sorry because I thought this was in any way harmful to Loki, but because I had just tried to move my arm, nothing more than an accidental reflex to shoo away a fly, but Loki stopped me, and our heart stopped for a second from my fear of un-control.

 _It is hardly important now._ He dismissed, seemingly unconcerned, and his dis-concern was easy to latch onto.

Loki had walked away from the food and started observing the people in the room, when he spotted something that grasped his attention completely. Sitting at one of the tables, sitting so we could only see his profile, animatedly talking to someone was… well now surely that was no frost giant. I compared the images from Loki’s memories the what- or rather who- we were seeing as Loki walked swiftly closer to investigate.

Yes, this boy- and it was defiantly a boy- had the same blue skin as the frost giant, but that was the only similarity. Where a frost giant’s skin was a light blue, this boy’s was slightly darker, where a frost giant had heritage scares all along his body, this boy’s hide was blank, and where a frost giant had ruby eyes his were yellow. No, this was definitely not a frost giant.

Even as we realized the answer, that he must be a mutant, Loki still walked us toward him, still curious as to what kind of mutant would have need of blue skin. He thought if he moved closer he might see the boy do something, and then his curiosity might be sated. Loki moved with much more graceful and longer strides across the room than I had, and we approached his target in seconds. As soon as we were about six feet away, what would have been only two long steps for Loki and I, there came a shout from a man at the table just behind the blue child.

“Kurt, watch out!” the man stood, and in one fluid movement pushed his hands- palms outward, fingers together- toward… _us!_ Within the second it took our body to follow the turn of our head, there was a blast of what could only be described as magic, hit us in the chest and knocked us off our feet. In seconds the chatter in the room went from peaceful and friendly to the sound of shouted commands, shoes running frantically around the white-tiled floor, and the readying of weapons (and it mortified me the think how many of these people, from this violent species had actually brought weapons to their dinner tables!). It sickened me too how I could feel there panic pleasantly under my skin, and to know that I was the one who made it so, never mind how they even knew I was here.

Looking up I panicked to see that every set of eyes were on me, and that several men and women had moved to stand in a defensive circle around me, every one of them posed and ready for a fight. Ha! As if I would fight them! Given the choice of fight or flight I would always choose flight. So I flew. I cut of the magic before any of them could attack me and came back to the bed in the little cell, still facing the wall, but not before I heard someone say “go check the guards in the cell block, make sure they're okay!” amongst other things, but that was the clearest one.

 _Why did you do that? I could have fought them this time!_ Loki questioned, still riled up from the mortals frantic auras.

 _That would have done us no good! It just would have made them angrier, they will be worried enough that they saw us- how did they see us?_ I questioned. We had been thoroughly masked, I had thought. No one had seen us before so I did not understand why that one man did.

 _Because I made a stupid mistake and forgot to mask my magic’s aura,_ he said, sounding highly disappointed in himself. _All sorcerers can sense, at least to some degree, the magic put off by other magic wielders. He sensed mine, which brought his attention to us, thus breaking the spell that hid us. Then he attacked, and every other mortal’s attention was brought to us, and the illusion shattered completely._

Well that made since. Then I remembered- _Wait, Loki, they said for someone to come down here and check on us! They will ask why we were there!_ I started to panic again thinking of what whoever they sent would do to get their answers from me, or how mad they might be just to have to interact with me. So far I had been luck, only a few rude humans, but I really did not like testing more and more of them. 

Loki took only a moment to think of a plan.

 _Sometimes when I slept, my magic would do things of its own accord, and Brother told me on a few occasions that I had sent clones to his room,_ he was slightly amused remembering the first time Thor told him that he woke up in the middle of the night with “Loki” standing over his bed and nearly attached the clone out of fright.

 _Yes, and?_ I then saw how he wanted me to act asleep when they arrived, and let Thor make the assumption from them all that I had simply done what Loki sometimes did.

_What if Thor does not come down here?_

That _is highly unlikely seeing as it’s_ us… _But, just in case, make a clone in our cell, and when you hear them start to unlock the door, vanish it. Any of them could come up with the sleep-magic idea._

 _Would that not be lying?_ It was definitely deceptive, and I was already unpleased about that, but if they tried to “wake me up” I would have to “wake up” and ask questions, I knew I would give something away, be it with my body language, or my stuttering, or something else. I was sure. Loki saw the potential probably the same as I did and came back with;

_When they come, and we vanish the clone, you can just whisper the sleeping spell, it will keep us knotted out for hours just like last time, plenty of time for them to get answers from Thor before they even have a chance to wake us, and you will not have to lie. _I like that idea a lot better.__

__So I created a clone without turning from the wall, only remembering Bo when I heard his “what the fuck is that?” from across the hall but it was too late, and I had plenty of practice ignoring him. I adjusted myself into a bit more “sleep like position” as Loki commanded, and waited. It could not have been but another minute, before I heard them all- whoever they was- coming down the hall, then standing out sided my cell, the only recognizable voices I heard were the ones of the still faceless agents ask whoever had come what was going on._ _

__I did not bother pointing out that Brother did not come, but instead whispered the spell on myself just as I heard the glass door sliding open, hoping that whether the clone stayed or vanished with our sleep, they bought the story I was trying to tell._ _

__I have no idea what they did after that, but when I woke it was to a sudden coldness all over my face. I rolled over quickly, gasping for the air that had almost been lost to me in exchange for water in my nostrils, and my mouth, and almost my lungs. I tried looking around, tried to figure out what had happened, but I was blind. During the nights- and it had to be night, did it not- the cell block was lit by only every third florescent light in the corridor, and all the others and the ones in the cells were shut off, making it extremely hard to see in anything from my cell, as none of the every-third-lights were in front of my cell._ _

__Because of this, it took me just one extra second too long to realize that my vision was being blocked even more by a very big, very solid mass, towering over me only inches from my head. By the time I did, however, realize there was something in the cell with me, and I jerked my head back reflexively (into the wall behind me with a dull Thud) it was too late. The mass shifted too fast for me to see before something connected fast and painfully, _painfully_ hard with my nose, forcing my face down into my pillow. I cried out, but it was muffled by my pillow._ _

__“You _stupid_ thing! We are fucking _sick_ of you!” Came a whispered shout from the shape, and I finally understood what was happening. Someone was finally here to kill me. They had all gotten tired of worrying over my presence. Over the threat of exosphere I brought. They saw through my attempt at pretending I was sleep-cloning today. They thought I had been trying to get information. Or hurt someone. Whatever more information they thought they wanted from me was apparently not important enough anymore. I was a danger, and they were done with me._ _

__“Yeah,” Came another voice, maybe a little farther back than the first. “And the best part is it’ll probably be all healed up before any higher ups even wants to talk to it again.”_ _

__Wait. What?_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone even following this story? I cant tell with this website.
> 
> _**also please comment!!!** _


	14. Beaten

“Yeah,” Came another voice, maybe a little farther back than the first. “And the best part is it’ll probably be all healed up before any higher ups even want to talk to it again.”

Wait. What?

I recognized the second voice instantly to be the masked woman from today and Monday, and even though I should not have been surprised that they had come to do this, I still was.

I had not looked up from where my head had been forced into the pillow, so I was wholly unprepared for when two sets of hand grabbed me by the wrists and ankles and hauled me off the bed, only to let go and have my body come crashing onto the floor. I smacked my head on the floor and even though it was cement, it did not hurt quite as much when the iron man attacked us in the tower. I was too scared to wonder why. It did not matter. I tried to turn over, to at least get on my side, so that I could back myself away from these rouge agents, but once I had gotten turned over the man forced one of his heavily booted feet down on my chest. Hard. I was too shocked to try and dislodge him.

“Don’t fucking move.” he said, more like a taunt then a warning and I recognized his voice then too. Not that it mattered. My eyes were adjusting now to the minimal light and I could just make out the shapes of the two agents when the man moved his foot to my throat. He pressed down harder and harder and I thought he was going to crush my windpipe then and there, only to have him stop at the point where air was only coming in wheezing little gasps.

And I gasped and gasped-

 _Put up the shield already!_ Screamed Loki, trying with every ounce of himself to push the magic through. I held back. _What are you doing?!_

_You said once that anyone too close would be hurt!_

_That is precisely the point! If they hurt, they stay away!_ He tried again to push past me, and again he failed.

 _Well I do not want to hurt them._ I pushed Loki back as much as I could, though it was not much given the state of things.

_And why NOT?!_

_You know exactly why not. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Hurt. People._ I tried to put as much feeling behind the words, but it was hard when my growing lack of oxygen was becoming more and more my main focus.

The woman moved in the corner of my eye. “So where do we start?”

Get your pocket knife, I bet-”

 _I cannot defend myself!_ Loki begged _I swore in the beginning that I would not let harm come to you if I could help it! Do you not think you own me that same safety sooner then you own it to them!?_

…Loki was right, I realized.

While it was easy to justify allowing myself to be harmed to avoid harming other, it was cruel and wrong to drag Loki down with me. To have taken him from his control, and then forced him to endure pain with no defense. Was that not practically the _definition_ of torture?

Decision made, I watched the woman move from the man’s side, waiting until Loki said it was just the right moment. She came around to my head in just a few steps and crouched down to me when her silver little knife managed to catch just smallest bit of light and reflect in our face.

I did not, and _still_ do not, know exactly why I reacted so fast upon seeing the knife, but as soon as I did, when I saw the tiny little thing, oh so _close_ to my face, I remembered just exactly _what_ was holding it. A human. _Anything_ is a deadly weapon in the hands of a human, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly innocent (be that the weapon or the human).

When I saw the knife, fear gripped me, in every fiber of my being, and scream to me _“defend yourself!”_ even louder than Loki ever could. I did not wait for Loki’s permission- the magic was already there, just waiting for direction- I did not think of the humans’ pain, I just reacted. I threw Loki’s magic out, the gold and green* shield surrounding me in the blink of an eye. Just like promised it threw the two agents back, and it threw them back _hard_. The women, since she had been crouching next to me, was not flung that far, and I watched the shadow that was her fall backwards on to her back and smack her head on the cement with her a loud cry. The man, however, as he had been half on top of me, was sent _flying_ back. Nearly all the way to the glass wall, where he too landed on the ground with his own loud cry of pain.

“Sorry! I am so, so sorry!” I said fearfully, and quickly backed under the cot, despite my safety under the shield.

Apparently this had finally caused enough commotion, because I heard the angry groans from some of the other prisoners.

“Jesus _fuck_ what are you doing in there Parasite!?” I heard Bo shout, slightly more astounded-sounding the pissed-off-sounding, but even with the glow coming off my shield I could not see him across the way.

“Shit.” Came the woman’s voice as I watched her now slightly illuminated form rise off the floor. From a little ways back I heard the man follow suit, and watched him walk into view next to her, both starring down at me with pissed-off and planning expressions.

“Hey! Either a’you wanna tell me what you're doing in the parasite’s cell in the middle of the fucking night!?”

“Now what do we do?” asked the male agent angrily, completely ignoring Bo.

The women did not reply, but took a step forward, and gave my shield a very hard kick, and then another, and then a few more.

 _HA! Who’s the stupid thing now you pathetic creature!?_ Loki laughed when all she succeeded in doing was making her foot sore, even through the metal-toed boots.

“Maybe we just wait it out?”

“Nah, that shield isn’t going anywhere. Remember? It stayed up even Its sleep on Monday."

There was a since of absolute smugness coming of Loki, because we had tricked them, they thought this shield would stay up no matter what, so they would not try to wait me out. They had no idea it could fall the second I was asleep, so all I had to do was stay awake until they left. No problem there. At all.

“So we try again Tuesday?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I’ll Push the boys, have them stand guard again, and we can see if we can get a few more punches in before it wakes up.” She replied, so very unconcerned that I was right here. And what did she mean “push the boys”? Had it really only taken a simple shove from her to put them into submission?

Loki’s reaction to her words was to become teeming with anger.

 _There is no way I am allowing them back! This will never happen again!_ He shouted so viciously it almost hurt my head.

_And how do you pl-_

_Create another shield, bigger, so they cannot leave,_ he snapped, imagining the clear glass wall swimming in a gold and green, with the two agents frantically hitting it, unable to escape.

 _I can make more than one shield at a time?_ I asked curiously.

_No! Of course you can't, I am simply telling you to do something impossible- of fucking course you can! Now do it before they try to leave!_

The agents turn to leave- so overly confident in their selves. I was more concerned with Loki’s fury, and how horrid it was clouding his sanity. I had no problem with them leaving, and could see no reason they need stay.

 _Tell me why!_ I begged, I was tired of Loki expecting things from me without question, and when he had asked something so psychotic as “keep the people trying to beat you to a pulp from leaving”, I was going to have a reason.

 _We will be safe if you keep this shield up, hurry, we are going to make so they will not ever dare try hurting us again. I will not having it!_ He urged me, somewhere between panic and fury that they were turning to leave now. Then he shoved the memory from Monday of me agreeing to do whatever he told me to while we were here to the front of our mind with all the conviction he could that I could not argue.

Frantically I threw up another shield-which was more like a barricade- along the still open entrance of my cell, watching it appear just in time to stop them both from leaving. Not bothering to listen to their exclamations of surprise, or Bo's mocks about how it felt to be locked in a cage, I turned my thoughts inward.

 _Loki, I_ need _you to explain what you want to do here, because I really, really do_ not _like having those monsters still here with us._

 _We do what we did earlier today, we make a clone, and the mortals come running._ He replied, imagining us at the foot of some unassuming person’s bed as they wake up in a panic. The he imagined Brother and others rushing in and dragging the two agents out.

 _I thought that we did not want them thinking I could do that on purpose?_ I questioned. I did not understand the point of having tried to pretend we- or rather I- had done it in my sleep if we were just going to tell them anyway.

_Well, yes, originally. But truly, it’s the lesser of two evils. Possibly they will think you were able to do it in your sleep because you can when you are awake. They may still think you were asleep. Possibly they will ask questions. They have had time to sort things out, and calm themselves; logically we do not have to worry about evoking their wrath either way now, even if they believe us to have been awake._

The two agents stopped banging on the door, and the woman turned around and came back over to us. Kicking the shield uselessly once more she demanded “Let us the fuck out! What? Do you actually want us to stay and beat you up!? Answer me!” she yelled when I did not reply.

“He doesn’t talk just ‘cause you yell at him, believe me, I’ve tried!” shouted Bo amusedly.

_What do you think the other humans will do to these two when they come?_

_Well obviously the will lock them up. If the filth that fills these cells is anything to go by, the humans think giving even their criminals over to your kind to be too cruel a punishment. And they_ have _broken_ some _rule I am sure, even if the victim is you and I, they will not go free._

_I do not think we should do it then._

_And why_ not?! _Are you_ mad?! Do _you want them to come back?!_ Loki’s fury had tipped over the scale. He was beyond trying to reasoning with me and was again trying to take control. Trying to send a clone to the hall with all of the living spaces in it. He wanted revenge on these people now, for daring try to hurt us, not simply the safety of knowing that they will not come back, and he had had it with my timid refusal to be even the slightest bit selfish (these were his word, some of the ones I could pick up in his angry scattered thoughts).

_No! But I do not want them to feel out of place in their own home because of me! This is their place. The human place. I do not want them to feel unwelcome because I came and upset them. And got everyone angry at them._

_Because you came and upset them?! Fallen M- No. Just no._ his voice took on a much calmer tone, and though fury still bubbled in the back of his thoughts, any of it that had been directed at me was gone. _You did not_ “come here and upset them”. _You were_ brought _here. And they_ got _upset. It is not your_ fault. _They will_ not _be getting into trouble because of_ you; _they will be getting into trouble because_ they have done wrong. _You did nothing. And when they came here tonight it was a planned and unprovoked attack. You did nothing._

I recognized the tone as one a concerned parent might use when trying to console their distraught child, and I would have protested, said I was just as old as he, if not for the fact that it was working. I mean, I had already known the attack was not my fault. I knew that, but I wanted to do as little as possible to farther their anger. Or to ruin the lives they had made here.

_Fallen Midnight Snow, you could do nothing, or you could do absolutely everything to these mortals, and they would hate you all the same. But as it stands, they are a danger. They will hurt us at every chance they get. We cannot let that happen. It is the responsible, reasonable, right thing to do to turn them in for their violence, is it not?_

This he wanted me to answer. He honestly wanted me to say he was right.

_Well yes, but-_

_But_ what, _Fallen Midnight Snow?_ I had never been in trouble before. Souls do not break rules, so no parental figures I had ever had (the souls whose host’s were the biological parents of my host, and whom I shared residence with) had never had reason to reprimand me. Here and now though, with the way Loki was speaking, I imagined this is what it would have felt like. And just like when a child is asked to explain something to an angry parent, (or just like how I imagined) I had trouble speaking my opinion, feeling now that it might not be all that valid after all.

_But we- or rather I am a criminal by their laws. They technically think that I killed you. So they would not care if I am beaten. Right?_

Of course _they would! They also have laws saying that guards are not allowed to beat criminals without proper reason. And even if the mortals do not care, Thor will. I know for a fact that on Asgard, guards are never allowed to touch prisoners, no matter how provoking they try to be, so long as they stay inside their cells-_ here he showed me a memory of himself in an Asgardian prison cell mocking a guard through another glass wall, who blank-facedly ignored him, and I would not realize until latter that this was the first of both his adult memories, as well as the first of his unhappiest, that he had willingly shown me- _so you see, Thor will at least demand someone watch us._

My resistance was failing. I could not come up with anymore excuses. But I still did not want-

_Then do it for others! If they are so willing to bully you because of your species, and nothing you yourself have done, they may be being this was to others, if we get them locked away they too would be out of danger._

Loki was just making thinks up now, but he was not _actually_ all that wrong. Humans are selfish and cruel. That could actually be happening.

In the end the thing that truly got me to stop arguing with Loki was _not_ anything he _said,_ but just how overwhelmingly tired I was. It did not take much energy to put up and sustain a shield or two, but the emotional turmoil the whole event had caused was draining, then Loki’s fury mixed with my panic and worry had giving me headache, not to mention the ache in my possibly broken nose (I was too afraid to touch it and find out), the dull throbbing in my head that only served to worsen my headache, and then there was fact that I was simply horrid at arguing. I was tired of trying to.

I plopped my head down on the floor in a defeated sort of gesture, and thought, _Alright then. But I do not want to do it. You can._

I let the magic flow, and made and sent the clone in the direction of the corridor the held the apartments that long-term residents of the helicarrier lived in. and watched listlessly from the back of our mind as Loki paused for a moment, having realized while he knew where everything was located on the blueprints, he had no idea who was in which room. More specifically the people he wanted to come to our rescue.

Without any farther hesitation, Loki created a clone at every door in the hallway, putting them in our same clothes, and giving them only his green eyes. The way the cloning spell worked, it cloned you just as you look unless you specified a difference while you were casting it, so it was easy in the perfectly light hallway to see how incredibly terrible we looked. Every clone’s nose, while definitely not broken, was bruised, with blood running down over their lips, and across their cheek (from where we were on our side, under the cot). There was also blood trickling down from a gash on each of their foreheads, from when we had been thrown to the floor. I wonder briefly why such a bad looking wound hurt so little.

Whatever the reason, this seemed to please Loki, and in the blink of an eye every clone’s face contorted itself into a look of so much pain and panic it was heart wrenching. Tears started streaking down their faces as they each began pounding on whichever door they were in front of, screaming for help, screaming for… for _Thor._

Brother! Thor! Help me! Help me please! Where are you?! I need you! Please!” they cried and cried and beat the doors until people started opening them.

Most of the humans reacted within a minute and Loki quickly looked through each clones eyes ever time a door opened. The first several doors opened were not opened by Thor, and Loki never bothered staying in which ever clone it was long enough to see who they were. They were not Thor, so the clone was vanished, and Loki moved to the next, and the next, and the next, until finally, _finally,_ Thor’s panic stricken face came into view.

All of the humans were awake by then and piling into the hallway, but Loki paid them no mind as he vanished all of the remaining clones, as well as the main one at the end of the hall he had been using to see when doors were opened. He vanished all of them, except, of course, for the one in front of Thor’s now wide open door.

He did not waste any time then, but quickly threw himself on Thor, latching onto his short-sleeved grey sleeping shirt, and pulling him frantically out the door. He gave no one time to argue or react, but took advantage of the mortal shocked state.

“Please come help me! Please! They are in the cell! Thor ple-hease!” he absolutely wailed. Loki then spun around, as if to lead Thor down to the cell block himself, leaving one hand grasped white-knuckled in Thor's shirt, and screamed bloody _murder_ when he saw all of the other mortals had surrounded us. He backed away from them quickly, knocking himself into Thor, and then vanished the last clone completely, all in one fluid motion, leaving us back in the cell, all alone, save for the two mortals I still had trapped in here with me.

When my vision came back into focus, the first thing I saw was the woman agent sitting Indian-style in front of my shield-covered cot, right near my head. Seeing her so clearly (as her face was illuminated by the shield’s glow) startled my already stressed nerves so bad that I jerked my head bad, and into the wall behind me like I had done earlier.

“Well, look who fucking decided to join us back in reality! What the hell is your problem anyway?” she screeched.

 _I am going to let the shield down now._ Loki said flatly.

_What!? NO!-_

_“NO!”_ I yelled aloud as the shield flickered out. The woman only hesitated for a second out of confusion before taking her opportunity to lunge forward and grab me. I recoiled as far as I could, still trying to push the magic that Loki was not supplying back into a shield when she caught me by the wrists, and pulled. Despite our lack of recent exercise, mine and Loki’s body was still much stronger then the woman and I managed to keep us from being pulled out. That was, until the man came over to help, having been trying to beat the barrier off the glass wall until he heard me yell.

He came over and grabbed our ankles, pulling them into the air on either side of his waste, and drug me (kicking helplessly) on my back into the middle of the cell.

“Well I guess we really did just have to wait It out.” he laughed, like this was some funny joke. I hated how it probably was to _them._ When he had dragged me far enough that I could not grab hold of anything with my hands the woman released them in favor of standing and quickly kicking the side of my face.

_Loki help! What are you doing?_

_We will be fine in just a moment. Calm down._

_You promised I would not be hurt! You promised!-_

“Please stop it! Please stop!” I shouted, covering my face with both of my arms, as tears started spilling out of my eyes at the pain in my face, and I tried to twist my legs out of the man’s steal grip. “Whatever I did I am sorry for it! I am so, so sorry!” I pleaded, unable to call upon any magic, an able to get free, I tried the last thing I could think of, but even I knew the humans would take my apology as recompense for whatever angered them.

“You're _sorry?”_ the women sneered. “You think taking over our world and killing all of our friends and family can be forgive because you said _you're sorry?!_ I’ve _heard_ how your kind talk about what you’ve done! You think you’ve make the world perfect, and you pat yourselves on the back for a job well done! You’re not _sorry!”_ she emphasized her anger by delivering another kick to the side of my chest.

“Yes I am, yes I am…” I mumbled through another sob. “Yes I-”

Yelling from down the hall interrupted me. Shouted commands from voices I recognized as The Widow and Steve Rogers telling someone (or some ones) to “stand down now and lower your weapons!”

Not even ten seconds later the lights in the hallway came on all at once (my arms still covered my face but I could see the light seeping though anyway) as I heard several pairs of feet come rushing down the hall. They were at my cell quickly and I heard Nick Fury’s loud commanding voice from just outside the wide open door.

“Release him and stand aside- hands were I can see them! Now!” he barked.I felt my ankles being released, and my feet falling to the ground, but I did not bother moving other than to curl over onto my side toward the glass wall so I was lying on the side where I had been kicked. I had read somewhere it was meant to help to lay on the sore side, but it was not helping all that much while I still lay on the floor, and I groaned in pain.

“One of you better explain quick just exactly why you _Pushed_ three of your fellow guarded into pointing guns at anyone who entered- actually, it’s obvious why you did _that,_ now get the hell out here and you can explain just what you thought you were doing while we get you situated in your knew prison-themed apartment- And stop trying to Push me Nina*, I've only got one good eye and you know you need both.” I listened as the two rouge agents left my cell silently, and listened too, as theirs, the director’s, and someone else’s footsteps heading in the opposite direction faded out.

“HAHA! That’s what you _get!”_ Came the celebratory shout from Bo, followed by shouts from the other inmates.

 _“Haha” indeed._ Floated Loki’s smug voice from out of the back of my head. And suddenly I remembered just exactly _why_ I had been dragged out from under my bed, and _yelled at_ , and _kicked!-_

“Are you alright-um, sir?” Came a woman’s very gentle, though slightly cautious, voice. When had someone gotten so close?

 _We will have words about this Loki,_ I said as firmly as I could. I was just about to move to sit up and to respond to the woman’s question that yes, I was fine now, when I felt something touch my arm, and I jerked away from it. My eyes shot open the same time I heard a gasp of surprise, and the sight of a slightly surprised Ms. Potts came into view. I sat up quickly-mindful of my sore ribcage- and looked around all of the others that were here now as well.

Outside my cell standing visibly in the hallway were three men in Shield uniforms, all of their helmets held in their hands and all looking highly disoriented. Directly out side of the door stood Steve Rogers, clad in only a pair of sweat pants, and The Widow, also clad in sweat pants, but with the addition of a black t-shirt. And in the cell sitting on the floor with me was, or course, Ms. Potts. But standing next to her was-

“Brother!” said with a smile, sitting up all the way, all my fears forgotten.

 _You idiot!_ Loki screamed in horror.

Thor took half a step back, his worried expression hardening at my exclamation. Realizing what I had just said, I froze, smile fading instantly and all the feeling drained from my body, replaces instead with a cold fear the pierced my chest and spread from there. What a stupid thing to say! Now he was going to yell, and leave, and hate me more- or worse! By the gods- there was no shield to save me now! He was going to call Mjölnir! He was going to hit me! He was-he was-

“Sorry! I am sorry! I know I am not your brother! I’m sorry I’m sorry!” I backed away as fast as I could until I hit the bed, pulling my knees up to my chest, covering my face and waited for the blow. “Please do not hit me…please, please, please… ” I trailed off into little sobs, which grew and grew until I could breathe no more.

Never mind that there was not cursing, or threats, or pain, I had already been beaten once tonight, for not even doing anything, and here was Thor, the one person I really had done something to and _of course_ I would say the one thing in all the nine realms that would anger him!

 _Oh Norns! Loki help!_ I begged, trying to push out the magic that was not there.

 _You are not talking to me, remember?_ Said Loki with such an air of bratty smugness, that, had I been able to take a breath, I would have screamed in my frustration. Now I had gone and made Loki mad at me too! And this really, really was all my fault!

_I am so sorry Loki… so sorry-_

Two large hands were suddenly holding my wrists, and prying them gently from my down-cast face. I tried to resist, tried weakly to twist my way free, but whoever held me was much too strong, and I gave up, allowing them to pull my arms away from my face.

“Count to ten.”

Thor’s voice.

This was Thor being gentle.

 _Oh thank the gods._ I did as he told me.

“One… two… three, fourfive, six, seven, eight. Nine. Ten.” I took a few quick breathes of air, and realized that it hurt to breath, not just in my chest, but in my neck too. Probably from when the male agent had been crushing my windpipe.

“Can you hear me then? Are you listening?” he asked, again much more kind then I expected, and I nodded, still not looking up.

“Good. Because I want you to hear this.” He said firmly, “I would never raise a hand against anyone because they misspoke. No matter whom they are. I admit, when I first learned what had happen to my brother I allowed my anger to take hold, but I have had time to think, and I know well enough that you have some of my brother’s memories, and I know that your kind often take up the habits of those you poses. I will not harm you because of a mistake. I am not so cruel. Do you understand me?” his words were not harsh, but they did demand I answer.

“Mm-hm, I understand,” I whispered, nodding my head just slightly. He was close enough, I knew he heard me.

“Hey, I brought a washcloth for him to wipe the blood off his face.” My head shot up when I heard Phil Coulson, and I watched him walk from the intense, behind Ms. Potts ( who still sat on the floor behind Thor) and over to my little sink next to the toilet behind the useless half-wall. He held the washrag under the running water until it was soaked, then turned off the water and rung some of the water out.

He walked over to where Thor and I sat, and he silently handed the washrag in our direction. Thor released my wrists in favor of taking the damp cloth with a smiling thank you. I silently watch as Phil Coulson left the cell, walking past Steve Rogers and The Widow, who are both leaning casually angst the sides on the cell door, and lead the three uniformed men out of the hall with him, saying he “needed there side of the story.” before they all walked off.

“Here,” Thor said, handing me the washrag. I took it silently, and stared at it in my hands for a second, before going about wiping my nose and lips first.

“So, hey,” came Ms. Potts voice as she scooted around to sit next to Thor “do you think you can tell me your full name? Phil was calling you Mr. Snow, but Tony, my husband, says it’s actually much longer. I've heard quite a few long ones from your people, so I don’t doubt, but I was just curious.” The tone she used was curious enough, but it was also the type of voice someone uses when they are trying to start a conversation before the silence became too awkward.

But- Her husband did she say? Did that mean she had married Mr. Stark?

“Aye and he keeps insisting we call you Tom, wherever he got such a name from.” Thor laughed along with Ms. Pot- Mrs. Stark rather- and a little hiccup of laughter bubbled from me as well.

Looking up at Mrs. Stark, I answer “my name is Fallen Midnight Snow.-” and just because I want to deter them from trying to butcher it again I added “- it is one full name. It does not actually shorten.”

“Hm, that _is_ kind of a mouth full*, though. My name’s Pepper by the way.”

Pepper. Like the spice. I smiled as I began wiping the blood from higher up on my face.

“It very nice to meet Ms. Pep-ah!” I hissed as I accidentally scrapped the washrag against the gash in my forehead.

“Are you alright?” asked Thor worriedly.

“Yes, yes, I am alright. The cut- it just, it stings. I had forgotten about it, is all.” I quickly reassured him, continuing the wipe the last remaining bits of dried blood from my face.

There was a ping of jealousy lacing Loki’s very dim thoughts I noticed.

“Fallon! That was it!” exclaimed Ms. Pepper excitedly.

“What is “it”, Lady Pepper?” Thor asked her.

“The name I was trying to think of.” She said, then looked at me “okay, I know you said your name doesn’t shorten, and I fully understand if you say no, but I was thinking maybe we could call you Fallon, since it sounds like Fallen. It’s a unisex name, mostly for girls I think, but I worked with a guy named Fallon once. He was nice.” She added off handedly.

Fallon. I thought the name over a few times. All sorts of different way, getting a feel for it. Faaaaaalllon. Fallon. Fallooooooon. The more I though the name, the more I thought I liked it. It was pretty. Sort of elegant, maybe? Maybe not. What about how Phil Coulson had used Snow as a last name? Would that make Fallon my first name? Fallon Snow. And what about Midnight? Fallon Midnight Snow? F. M. Snow? Fallon M. Snow?

_Fallon M. Snow…_

“You don’t have to say yes, or course, it was just a suggestion.” She reiterated.

“No, no. I actually quite like it. Fallon is a good name. You can call me that if you would like.” I smile to her in reassurance.

“Alright. Fallon it is then.” she said, and I just missed the frowned the etched itself into Thor's mouth as Director Fury walked into view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Gold and green shield: if I mentioned earlier that the shield (and Loki's magic) is green, well, in light of the new Thor the Dark World trailer, I realized its actually Gold, so now in my story its Gold and Green. accept it. also in light of the trailer, I just want to point out for visuals sake, that Fallon (God you have no idea how happy I am that I only have to type that short little name now) had Loki's and his hair the length/style it is in Thor 2, and Loki made him cut it to how it was in the first Thor. also jasdhfaewrgfpoifdjasdinfd THOR THE FUCKING DARK WORLD OH MY GOOOOOOOOD!
> 
> * Nina the Push: I only made her a Push ( Pusher?) as I was writing this chapter, and yes she is in fact named after the Push in the show Alphas, no its not actually that Nina, I just need a name for her, and after I made her a Push, and the fact that my mom was watching Alphas in the back ground I was just like " why the fuck not."
> 
> *"that is kind of a mouth full." this actually has nothing to do with my story, as Pepper is right. Fallon's full name is a fucking mouth full, but this is also basically the same line that Uncle Jeb gave to Wanderer (the soul in the original novel who is basically the canon Fallon, for anyone who hasn't read the novel. also. go read the novel.) but her name is only three syllables. wan-der-er. his full name is Jebediah. je-be-di-ah. four syllables. and granted he shortens it to Jeb, but I'm just saying. just saying.
> 
> _**\- Review! I'm not kidding! you have fingers and brains!** _


	15. Heard

After The Director returned from imprisoning his agents he spoke to me first (something which surprised me greatly), and told me he would be having Phil Coulson debrief me about all of this in the morning. I nodded my head silently, and he told Thor and his friend to clear out for the night. When Thor started to stand up I panicked, grabbing for him, and asked him not to go. Stupidly. I did that stupidly. He hesitated for a moment, and I could see his conflict between wanting to stay with me – his brother's body, really – and the revulsion that he was nearly going to. In the end, Thor hesitated just long enough for Captain Rogers to offer to stand guard in case more agents came. He promptly left after thinking the Captain for his kindness.

A few minutes later found everything back the way it was meant to be – prisoners in bed, lights off, etc. – all except for the Captain standing outside my cell and my pillow having to lay out on the floor to dry (what water hadn’t landed on my face when the two agents woke me had soaked into it).

Just as I was about to roll onto my side from my back and pull the covers over my head, I heard Bo say, "Hey Kid, you're alright, right?" in a voice that was not overly worried, but still concerned enough. I waited for a second, firstly to determine whether I thought Bo was serious before I embarrassed myself answering, and also to make sure the Captain saw no issue with the prisoners talking.

"Yes… I am fine now." I tried to put a smile in my voice, but I was not too sure how steady my voice stayed through the lie. After a moment I added, "No lasting wounds, my body heals too fast," to try to make it seem like my physical well-being was what I had been referring too.

"Well! So you can hear me? Don't try t' lie to me, Felon," he said, and I was stunned at how much of a wise old man he sounded in comparison to his usual taunts and teases.

"It is pronounced Fallon-" I tried to correct him.

"Murder's a felony, Felon." He said matter-of-factly and then gave a little chuckle before adding, "So g'night _Felon."_

I did not like what he was implying. All the humans here thought I was an unrepentant murderer, I knew it, but I did not like Bo saying it aloud. It was not true after all; neither was Loki dead, nor was I unregretful. So – and I think I was only brave enough to say it because of the two layers of reinforced glass between us, and Captain America standing guard – but as I rolled over onto my side away from him I said oh-so-innocently, "Good night then, Beauregard." 

Yeah. I knew what "Bo" was short for.

I heard several chuckles and one woman’s sing-song, "Haha~ he knows your full name~!" Bo's only reply was, "You got more balls then I gave you credit for, I'll give you that Felon… _NOW EVERYBODY SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP!"_ he shouted, and the silence was instant.

As I laid there, I wondered for a minute why the Captain had not said a word throughout the entire conversation, and chalked it up to the fact that he was only here to stand guard over me – it was not like anyone was planning an escape, so there was no reason to stop us from talking. Besides, we were all adults, not children with a bed time.

_What do you think, Loki?_

There was no answer from his end, not even a flicker of emotion or simple wordless-idea. I would have thought I was alone if I did not just know, somehow, that Loki was still there.

 _Loki? Are you mad at me still?_ I tried to search for him, any bit of him, but all I found were walls. Walls on his memories, walls on his emotions, walls on his present thoughts. How long had he been able to do that; hide his thoughts? Had those not always been open to me? Perhaps since I had not been pushing for memories and answers for so long – as Loki almost always showed and told me anything I asked – he had found his own time to build up walls and gain his own strength against me… Did he still think me untrustable?

_Loki, please talk to me…_

Nothing.

_I am not mad at you…_

Nothing still.

_Loki, do not ignore me! Please!_

_Why!?_ He shouted suddenly, apparently unable to do so any longer. _So you can yell at me? Tell me how I lied to you and used you, and how furious you are? How I betrayed your trust? Because I have heard that all before,_ Fallen Midnight Snow, _and I will not hear it from you! I saved you! They did not hurt you so horribly, and you gained_ my _brother's oh-so-doting attention! You should thank me!_

 _Thank you,_ I replied.

_And anoth- what?_

_I am not mad, I already said that, and you did save me. For that I am thankful,_ I reassure him firmly. Loki was not trying to hide his thoughts from me now – or he was not thinking to do so, and had forgotten his walls had fallen – and I could tell just how confusing my response had been to him.

Loki had, apparently, been reprimanded quite severely in the past for doing things without planning – or rather without informing others of his plans. I saw, though not deliberately, when in the heat of battle he would lead his section of soldiers into position to distract the enemy against orders. Even when no one was hurt, and it was a better executed plan then the commanding officers', he was still clipped upside the head and told to think of the others before he did something so reckless, then forced to clean up and look after the horses as punishment, or something else degrading.

And I saw in all his missions – in every strategy he made, as he picked who was friend and who was foe – that he objectified himself, and ignored his own safety for that of others. He ignored all the times he was hurt or in danger, and thought of himself as only a weapon, only a means to the right end. He was berated, called reckless, punished… And still he did it again, and again, and again, without regret, even as no one listened to his reasons. Even as everyone he had fought with refused to go into battle with him anymore. Even as the All-Father compared him to Thor and told him he should listen like his brother and fight like his brother, and learn to _behave._

Loki had not meant for me to see any of it – and I honestly _wish_ that I had not – but after I did he had nothing to say.

 _You objectify yourself,_ was my main concern – the one new bit of information that I found relevant, or that I thought Loki might not hate that I had seen, and would not mind as much my mentioning it. _You do not even think of yourself as a person when you are fighting?_ I could not even imagine it. How did someone forget themselves? How did they forget pain and fear, and how did they willingly endanger themselves? How did Loki truly forget his very self so easily?

 _No, I do not,_ he agreed defensively. _One must think of the greater good – or whoever or whatever they fight for – before they think of themselves. That… that is what I did earlier,_ he began with some hesitation, expecting to be silenced, _when they came after us– after you. During what followed my commanding the clones, I had a plan thought out. I admit to having forgotten that you are not battle hardened and therefore would not objectify yourself as well, but I reasoned that if they were caught red-handed, it would be better than them simply being found stuck under the cot. So I shut down._

He showed me how he thought the two different ways the scene could have turned out, and how they would have looked to Brother and his friends. First the one I had wanted, the one where we stayed in the shield. He figured if it looked like I could and would protect myself, then there would be no reason to keep us guarded. If there were no cuts or bruises on us, it would give the agents a chance to lie their way out, play it safe, and come back to try again like they had said they would.

Then he showed me the one that he had made happen – the one where I was defenseless, weak, and hurt. He showed how as he objectified himself, his thoughts were of _"A few hits now is better than a knife to the throat later,"_ and of how he was thinking of his promise to me. He did not think this counted as me being hurt, because he had forgotten that I would not know how to objectify myself as well to take the hits for the better turn of events.

He forced all his emotion into the memory, like he was desperate for me to understand that he did not act so unsympathetic because did not care, but because he really, really _did._ He wanted to be heard because he had someone – the very first someone – willing to hear exactly why he acted the way he did. There was even immense regret when he remembered himself saying so callously, _"You are not talking to me, or do you fail to recall?"_ It had only been him lashing out because he had thought I was angry with him. He wanted to pretend he did not care until he convinced himself he didn't.

And then there was the tiny ball of fear hidden so well behind his walls, the frightened little thoughts of, _What if he does not forgive me?_ and, _What if he does not see my meaning?_

 _Oh, Loki, you untrusting idiot! I will_ always _forgive you. You are my friend, and if you only_ explain _yourself and do not shut me out,_ of course _I will listen!_ Did Loki truly forget who I was? I do not hold _grudges,_ I do not stay _angry_ at people – I used to never even _get_ angry at people for the Norns’ sake – and I certainly _do not_ ignore people who are upset!

Loki was shocked to say the least, of course he knew me, and knew how I was, this just wasn't a situation he ever been in: one where people listened to him and believed him so quickly. So many centuries could easily place doubt in anyone, I could understand that. His only response because of this was to ask, _Why?_

 _Because I know you do not lie to me for the fun of it. Each time you have lied, it was been for my own good. And Loki, we are stuck inside the same head; you can lie to me sometimes, when I myself am not thinking straight, but any other time I would know it. Even if I had no way to know if what you said is true, it is in my very nature as a Soul, when confronted with conflict, to look at all sides. It is impossible, at least for_ me, _to make a judgment on your actions without the actual knowledge as to why you did what you did. So you see, I will always listen, though I do admit I would prefer if you did include me beforehand,_ I added.

There was hesitation in Loki's thoughts, and caution as he asked, _So if I acted without asking you, but I… I made an attempt to fill you in and not carelessly drag you down with me, you would not remain upset? And you would still listen to my explanation?_

 _Yes,_ I said immediately.

 _Well_ that's _nice_ He said in a tone one might use when they have waited for something for so long, that upon getting it they are more annoyed it took so long than they are relieved they finally did.

 _…And I am truly your friend?_ This was something he was almost refusing to believe. He had never had any true friend of his own before. Sure, there were the women he practiced magic with on occasion, but that was more sitting in a room and quietly exchanging notes, techniques, and what-not in silence. There had been a few people willing to sit and talk with him during feasts, but that was politics – people merely desperate to climb the social ladder. Of course there was Sif and the Warriors Three, but they were Thor's friends, not his, and of course they had never trusted him; so quick were they to betray his King's Comma-

Loki cut his thoughts off right there, before any amount of a hate could consume his mind.

Out or respect I did not push the subject, but simply replied to his question with a cheeky, _Do I ever lie to you?_

He did not respond – he did not have to. I could feel his relief radiate through us without words. The conversation died there, misunderstandings sorted and amendments made. We were both bone-tired and our thoughts wandered. Sometimes they coincided, sometime we thought about different things.

That was, until I had to turn us over again. There was just no comfort to be found on the cot without my pillow, as small and thin as it was.

_Fallen Mid-_

_Fallon,_ I corrected him. _I was not kidding when I said I like the name. I think it might be better if I just get used to it anyway, so "Fallon" now, okay?_ I figured if that was what the humans were going to be calling me – if I was lucky enough to talk to any more soon, I had been trapped in this cell a whole week after all – I should be used to it, not forgetting every time they said Fallon because I was still Fallen Midnight Snow inside my head.

 _Okay, Fallon, roll onto your stomach._ He imagined us doing so, tucking one arm under our chest and resting the side of our face on the other hand. It was a position he had often used to sleep in when on camping trips and had to sleep on the ground. I did as he told, and was extremely relieved when the position was just as comfortable as Loki remembered.

 _Why do I ever doubt you, oh great and wise Loki?_ I joke, and we smiled quietly as he replied in a fake holier-than-thou voice,

_I have absolutely no idea. It's completely ridiculous, this defiance of yours._

I do not remember us falling asleep, or if we dreamt that night, but I do remember that the next morning we were woken up by a hand somewhat gently shaking my shoulder and Mr. Stark’s voices saying,

"Rises and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Don't make me kiss you. I got a wife; I can't get caught cheating with the enemy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter was Beta'd by _Aconitine._
> 
> okay, so this chapter was completely spontaneous, but I think it works well enough.
> 
> If you felt Loki seems a little OOC in this one it's because my Loki's emotions are effected by those of the people around him, and every one is relatively calm/unemotional in this chapter because they're falling (I seriously cant believe the number I times I have written a variation of the world "Fall" in the this story, like, ohmigosh) asleep, except Fallon, who is all antsy and worried, and because Fallon and Loki are kind of getting closer and closer to one another, Loki just more easily reflects what Fallon's feeling, if he isn't working too hard to feel another way that is. Plus he did upset the only person who can talk to him, who's to say he wasn't really worried, and who's to say that's not exactly how Loki acts in his head when he's worried, because we all just know he'd be really good at hiding it anyway.
> 
> that or I think I've just ended up making my Loki Bi-Polar, but whatever work I guess *Le Shug*
> 
> -to anyone who's read The Host all the way though (so if you haven't finished, or your going to start soon, this Might be spoilers) I just realized that if Kyle gets with Sunny in the next book, that would technically make her name Sunny O'shea, and I think that freaking ADORABE. that would also made Wanda "Wanda O'shea" since she's with Ian.
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> **also, i'm now in my last year of high school (THANK GOD) so I'm DEFINETLY not going to be updating in any set pattern. I can't say I'm gonna take months to up-date chapters, but it definitely won't be weekly any more ( not that these last two have either, but shut up.), So that's just to warn you, if I don't up-date for a long while, my grades probably went to shit, and my mom took my laptop and hid it. Again.**  
> _
> 
> _**please comment!!!** _


	16. Tested

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7,990 word, and Loki claims to need a meter stick where all other men would only need rules.

My eyes flew open when the hand touched my shoulder and the voice came much too close. Mind becoming frantically alert as instinct had me twisting my torso up and toward the treat, and the forearm not supporting me coming up in front of my chest, at the same time I pull my legs slightly in front of myself in a rather weak excuse for one of Loki’s defensive positions.

 _It’s them!_ _They're back! Get help! Call Thor Gethelpthey'rebackgethelpgetThor!_

“Whoa, whoa okay, no need for that!” Tony Stark said, jerking back, with his palms out in a “non-threatening” gesture. “We’re cool. It’s uh, it’s Fallon now right? Yeah, Fallon,-”

 _Breath Fallen Mid-_ Fallon, _all is well. See how he panics at your panic? He means us no harm. Now sit up and breathe_. Loki cut into Mr. Stark’s rambling. I did as I was told, feeling more level headed with Loki’s more sensible mind set filtering into mine, though I never took my wider-eyed stare away from Mr. Stark.

Once I had sat up and calmed my breathing, Mr. Stark started talking again (having stopped when I started moving) and asked me simply “You okay now?”

“…Yes.” I replied, giving a quick nod, finally shifting my gaze for Mr. Stark in favor of looking at my lap.

“Okay, so I’m in charge right now, Steve just left and I’m going to take you to talk to Phil again. And no trickety-tricks either, got it?” He said almost like it was a joke, like he was trying to make light of the situation. I nodded, of course I understood that I was meant to be interrogated again, that was established last night. What I did _not_ understand was why Tony Stark was taking me. If the mortals all knew what I was capable of, and though I would use it aggressively should I not be taken by agents? Escorted like the threat they clearly thought I was?

“So, yeah, put your shoes on-” he weakly kicked his foot toward where my shoes were and the foot of the cot, “-and let’s get going.”

As I was putting my shoes on, Loki spoke up, _I think this is some form of test Fallon, that Stark is with us on his own._

 _Test for what? Why?_ I asked, nerves spiking at the thought that I might fail whatever test this was and the humans would punish me somehow for it.

Getting up hesitantly, I followed Mr. Stark down the hall, noticing as I walked that all of the others prisoners were still asleep in their cells. And there were not the usual guards in the cellblock either.

 _Likely our little escapade yesterday riled up their delicate little nerves, and they are taking this opportunity to see what we will do when left alone-_ his thoughts turned to how all the prisoners were asleep, and we had yet to a single guard had been seen as we walked and conjured the magic necessary for a shield should we need- _with someone smaller, who you could think is a easy target-_

“-am I right?” Mr. Stark spoke up.

 My head snapped up for the floor to see Mr. Stark grinning at us- me, waking backwards toward our destination.

“What?” I asked quickly, afraid I missed something imperative.

“Dude you have _got_ to stop spacing out. You're like a zombie, it’s kinda creepy-” he came to walk beside me, and turned to walking forwards again “-I _said_ I bet you're wondering how we all managed to get here and survive for so long, right?”

I had _never_ thought about it. I knew they all escaped to here, they had far too many weapons, and they stole supplies and food. What more could there be for mere survival?

Mr. Stark did not give me a chance to voice my quiestion however, because as we turned another corner he went on to explain.

“I bet you guessed the obvious stuff; we all saw what was happening and ran to a hiding spot, the helicarrier, and we have food because we go and steal food- bet that pisses you guys off, I’ve seen how adamant you all are about rules and law an stuff- BUT, I bet you can't guess how we’ve stayed hidden or how we've kept up the power for so long” he seemed so happy, like he was getting ready to show off.

But what an odd way to put things. How they have stayed hidden? Did he mean he thought we did not know they were _in_ the helicarrier? Or that we did not know where the helicarrier _was?_ He would only be right if he meant the later. As for the power issue, I had a guess for that, but I did not want to speak up. Luckily Mr. Stark very much liked talking and did not let the silence drag on.

“See this?-” he tapped the Arc Reactor on his chest, glowing through his blue T-shirt “-it called an Arc Reactor, and it’s got an _incredible_ amount of energy. This one here’s powering an electromagnet in my chest and is basically keeping me alive, but I build a _bigger_ one and its basically powering this whole helicarrier, otherwise it would’ve crashes a long time ago. We’re stayin’ up all because of _my_ genius.”

So we were in the air then?

 _He is just_ so _proud of himself, is he not?_ Loki joked and I chuckled aloud. I stopped immediately of course, looking up at Mr. Stark’s confused face.

“What are you laughing about?” he questioned.

 _Go on,_ do _tell him._ Loki encouraged.

“I am sorry, um…” I started off hesitantly, trying to find the right words, so as not to affined Mr. Stark. “-All I meant- well, uh, you did not hide your blue-prints and instructions on building an Arc Reactor very well, or, um, hide the one in your _tower_ at- at all _._ You are- your invention is actually is- we copied it and Arc Reactors are now powering all of earth, and um since they last so long, I mean, and they are the cleanest form of energy we have found so far that is... we sent some to the Spider’s planet for study and… we will probably be using them throughout our entire… what?” Mr. Stark was staring at me eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“You’re actually using the arc reactor? For the entire planet?”

“Well… yes. It’s clean. Why would we not?”

“Eh,” he shrugged, composure returning. “I don’t know. So you wanna meet a friend of mine? Jarvis, say hi!” he raised his voice to the ceiling.

“Hello Sir,” came a very calm and very automated voice from the ceiling (presumably _speakers_ in the ceiling). I had heard of Jarvis, Mr. Stark's AI, and Butler of sorts, but he had been uninstalled from both Stark Tower as well as his Malibu home before Mr. Stark fled to the helicarrier, so I had never had any personal experience with it, but was quite impressed with the human’s sentimentality to bring it with him.

“Hello Loki of Asgard.” It said after a pause, and then my brow furrowed.

“Hello Jarvis…?” I said in the vague direction of the ceiling.

“Oh right, Jarv, update Loki’s statue from Deceased* to Shut Down, create a link to a new profile for one “Fallen Midnight Snow”, or Fallon as he likes, and make his status Piloting Lok-”

I only had a slip second to feel the sparks of two angry mortals suddenly so close before a yell of _“Get away from him!”_ came from behind us, and Mr. Stark and I turned at the sudden voices. Two agents came running down the corridor we had just past, gun out and aimed. They weren’t wearing masks and the closer they came I could see the hate on their faces, so ready were they to _end me-_

_Agentsgunsagents-agentswithgun- getThorgetThorGETTHO-_

_Get the shield you foolish child!_ Loki cried, practically materializing it himself has I rushed to obey, grabbing Mr. Stark by the arm as the agents fired at us.

_BANG_

_BANG_

The guns went off.

_THUD_

_THUD_

My world went dark.

Had I been hit somehow?! Had my magic fail and I had been killed?!

“Dude let go! That hurt! _Dude!”_ Mr. Stark was yelling, then there was movement and- oh. I had pulled myself behind Mr. Stark, without releasing his arm, and buried my face… in… his neck…

I jerk away from him, momentarily forgetting the agents in exchange for the humiliating embarrassment of what I had just done. Me, with all the power, a _grown man_ no less, hiding like a child behind a man _smaller_ than myself.

 _You_ are _a child_. Loki deadpanned.

I could _feel_ my face redden as I met eye with Mr. Stark.

“Hey!-” our attention was brought back to the agents. “-Step away from Tony! Whatever you think you're doing give up, you’ve been caught!”

“Whoa! Guys it’s cool. He didn’t do anything to me.” Mr. Stark caught their attention. “If anything he just saved me for getting shot by the both of you, so I will _thank you_ to put your guns down and tell me just what in the hell you think you're doing rushing into things guns blazing!?”

 _Well he grew up fast._ Loki thought, but I was still not paying him any attention. Their guns were still aimed, and even with the shield separating us, I was not letting my guard down.

“Kelly and Mark went to take the parasite to the interrogation,” one of them growled “and when they showed up, it and the Captain were gone. They radioed everyone to start searching, so what the hell are _you_ doing with it!?”

From behind him, I could not see Mr. Stark’s expression, but when he spoke again it was with the tone of someone who was admitting defeat. “Look, Fallon- that’s him-” he jabbed his thumb in my direction “- hasn’t done anything to me, you would know that _Loki_ only had the ability to take over minds- because I assume that’s what you think has happened here- with that staff that we destroyed way back. Neither is this Loki, nor does he have that staff. I’m fine. I just…” he ran his fingers though his hair. “I wanted to talk with Fallon, I was curious, that’s just me. So I went early and told Cap there was a change of planes, so he could go get some rest. He was too tired to argues, so he let me into the cell and left. He’s probably in his apartment by now fast asleep. Go have someone confirm it.”

“Come out of the force field first.” An agent demanded.

“Put your guns down first,” Mr. Stark shot back.

“That’s enough.” Came a voice from behind and I spun around to see Phil Coulson walking down the hall. He walked past Mr. Stark and I, around my shield, to the agents to confirm Mr. Stark's story.

 _It was no test then?_ I questioned, confused.

 _He was simply being reckless! He nearly got us shot!_ Was Loki’s outraged reply, though it was more an exclamation geared toward himself than to me.

“Hey Fallon, you mind?” Mr. Stark asked tapping knuckles against the shield.

He wanted me to drop the shield? Let us free to be shot? I looked to were the two agents had been, realizing only now that they were walking away, and only Phil Coulson remained near. His presence was enough to make me hesitate.

 _Oh by the Nine!-_ Loki exclaimed in frustration before forcing away his magic and allowing the shield to dissipate once again. I went still, glancing side-long at the agents, just in time to see them turn the same corner they had appeared from, presumably going back to their post.

“Cool, now let’s go, shall we?” Mr. Stark asked, walking off towards the interrogation room, not bothering to see if Phil Coulson or I followed.

\--

I was not tied down this time. That was nice. I was not, however left alone for breakfast either. Instead, I was joined by Phil Coulson; it was a silent even, I too shy to speak up, and Phil Coulson perhaps too polite. After breakfast though, the sweet peace that that silence brought was banished.

“So,” he began, after breakfast was carried away. “I want to start off with how much magic you can do. You avoided those questions on Monday, but I think it’s best that you tell me now what all you can do, after yesterday, I need to know.” His voice was not angry, but there was no room for protest.

 _Damnit,_ Loki swore.

I did not look him in the eyes, and the situation felt all too familiar. “Just what you have seen, I think. The shield, and the clones, and the invisibility… and um-”

 _-That is it!_ Loki cut in. not allowing me to finish. He did not want them to know of any else.

“-and that is it…” finished lamely.

 _“He’s lying, he knows more.”_ came Widow’s voice from Phil Coulson’s ear piece.

 _Widow? Do you suppose Brother it there too_? I questioned.

_Probably._

“And what else Fallon? There's more.” Phil Coulson prompted patiently.

…

 _Just answer as I say,_ Loki sighed.

“And there's a sleeping spell… But I swear it only works on me!! Loki used in for- for when he could not sleep at night! If he had studied too long or if his mind would not stop it’s circling over thought after thought! That’s all, I swear it.” I gave the information Loki fed me, remembering from the last time that they believed full answer more readily.

“So no teleporting then?”

_Oh thank the Norns, they believed you._

“No, not at all.” I shook my head.

“-Now I want to know what you're doing here.”

 “What?” I voice my confusion at his vague question.

“Just be honest here. You haven’t done anything wrong so far, and I think you know you're a bad liar, so just tell me: was it set up for you to come here? Were you trying to get captured by our men? Are you here for information? Are Seekers coming for you?”

 _Is that what they think?_ I was astonished at that idea!

_It isn’t that farfetched, you did run straight to them after all._

“No, I was- it was spontaneous.” I say to Phil Coulson.

“So it was your idea to infiltrate the helicarrier?” There was a tone to his words that I could not explain, that made me nervous. He was excited, Loki figured, thinking he was one step closer to an answer with this new accusation.

“What!? No! That is _not_ what I meant at _all!”_ I panicked, rushing to defend myself eyes flashing up to him, but remained downcast.

“You didn’t mean to get captured? Then what did you intend?” he pushed.

 _Do not answer. Stop speaking. Be. Silent._ Loki bit suddenly.

_A cannot though. I must answer now. He will be furious otherwise-_

_Damn him! Keep your silence for_ Thor! _If you say it, it will kill him! He does not wish to hear such things from you!_

_Okay! Alright! I will not, I will not!_

“Were you going to fight them off then? At the tower?” he suggested, leaning forwards just a bit.

I leaned back on my chair. Eyes on my lap, the nails of my right hand starting to nervously pick and the palm of my left, another nervous-habit of Loki’s I had apparently picked up along the way. “No! That’s not it eith-”

“Then what was it Fallon?” He said, a coldness to his voice now.

“It was _nothing._ I just-”

“ _Fallon_.”  He warned me sharply, stopping me from my pathetic attempt at lying.

 _Be silent, do not answer,_ I chanted. _Be silent_ , _do not answer-_

 “Answer me Fallon! Right! Now!” he slammed his hand against the table, and I jumped in my seat. He had not shouted… exactly… but the harshness coupled with his hand slamming against the table had the world leaping from my tongue before I could stop them.

 “I just wanted to see my Brother!” I shouted, and then froze.

 _You treacherous cretin!_ Loki snarled.

“Your brother? Do you mean Thor?” I asked, sitting back in his chair. Back to being all _calm_ and _smiley._ This human! Really!

“I- I forgot Phil Coulson! I forgot he was- was- _is_ not _mine!_ And I missed him! And I am a terrible, horrible monster and I just- I just- I wanted to _apologize_ to him!” I confessed, nearly slamming my head on to the table in relief. I had not meant to keep speaking, but the words had already fallen out and honestly felt _nice_ to say it. To admit I felt regret for the very thing my species was evolved to do. To speak the _truth_ and be _honest_ and not _lie_ or _avoid_ , to do the things I was used to doing. Something that finally felt _right_ after so much _wrong._

But Loki was furious now. He could not believe that I had broken so “easily”. That I would do so over something as important as this, and then feel _relieved_ about it of all things. He though I ought to be feeling shame, and the more his livid thought bled into mine, the more I was beginning to. But he was beyond words, beyond proper thought, and because I was too cowardly to try speaking to him I focused on the outside world, and Phil Coulson, and defiantly not Thor or the other watching from some another room.

 “Okay then,” Phil Coulson nodded simply.

Okay? That was it? I, their enemy, had just confessed to harboring emotional attachments to one of his friends, and he was going to move on as though it were no big deal? Or maybe it was not to him? Either way he moved on, asking only easy questions, or maybe they only seemed easier in comparison, I wasn’t sure, but it felt like a mercy granted, and I was thankful, even if Loki refused to help me word certain answers right.

Later, after many more questions were asked and answer, and I was escorted back to the prison- this time by Phil Coulson alone- Loki still had not spoken to me. He was not being silence though, not by a long shot. He wanted me to know he was angry.

_You know I am sorry right? Truly I am, I just-_

_Yes I know you are_ sorry! He shouted, finally speaking his mind now that he could have my full attention. _Of_ course _you are!_ _But that does not make up for it! Do you know what these mortals are likely to do now!? They are going to look at you and say “look at the sympathetic thing, look and the guilty creature! Let’s exploit its pitiful existence!” they will shove Thor in here and make him talk to you! Get more answer, more secrets! He should not have to go near you when it will so clearly hurts him! It is unfair to all of us!_

_Can we fix it?_

_No! We can do-…  we can do nothing. It’s as I told you, chaos and disorder find me everywhere, you have simply come along for the ride and there's nothing to be done about it._ He didn’t even sound angry now, just frustrated and miserable. _We are doom to a lifetime in a cell forever in the others company. We will never see freedom; our last act is going to causing misery unto Thor before he finally grants us the mercy of death!_

_Was he not going to take us to Asgard? Is our fait not in the hand of your mother and father-_

_He’s not my father Fallon. If what Thor said is true, the only reason he has not disowned me was on likely on Frigga’s request, when they here have finished with us, and Odin see’s how I have been take out, he will use that he did not disown me for my crimes as proof he loves me still, and sentence you to death for murdering me, or we will die “accidentally” when he orders Eir and her healers to attempts your removal._

_Why do you think your- Odin hates you? I see him do nothing but love you in your memories. I have never had real parents, and but I expect their meant to love you no matter what. Even adoptive ones right?_

_Fallon, I have shown you nothing but my best and fondest memories. Of course everything seemed perfect back then. I was-_

“Hey, Felon! You’ve got company!” Bo shouted noisily. “See, he’s just got a focusing problem, you just have to get his attention.”

 _Pestering man,_ Loki growled.

I turned my gaze toward Bo, eyes coming back into focus, only to be met with the site of Professor Xavier instead. Right. He had said Monday he wanted to see me in person… oh! Wait- Loki’s attention was instinctively drawn to checking the barriers placed on our mind, and making sure there were no cracks for the mind reader to see through. There were none, thankfully.

“Hello,” he said simply, with just a hint of a smile. It was no real smile, even I could see that, just one meant to be given out as civility. “We’ve never met before. My name is Xavier.”

_Do not talk to him. Just... Do not._

_What if it angers him?_ I had no real intent to talk anyway, but the promise of pain was ever on my mind in the torturous place.

 _So what if it does? You have the shield, he cannot get into our mind, and he is crippled! What is_ he _going to do?_

“Would you mind if I came in?” he asked, wheeling himself to the control panel. “I wanted to talk to you, and I thought we might keep it a bit more private.”

I shrugged in response. I _wanted_ to tell him no, that I honestly wanted to be left alone, but there was no way I could get those words out with enough conviction to convince the human to leave me be. It was worth no effort even thinking on.

He nodded, gave his thanks, and entered, the glass door sliding shut behind him.

“Would you mind giving me your name?” he prompted. I said nothing.

 _As if he doesn’t already know._ Loki scoffed _._

 _“_ I heard what happened last night.” The Professor stated after a minute. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

…

“So is there anything on your mind you’d like to talk about? _(Wouldn’t you like to know,_ Loki snickered, a hint of pride mixed in for his spell work) That’s what I'm here for. I'm not a therapist by any means, but I’m good for listening” he tried again.

If I _were_ going to speak I would firstly tell him I was thinking on how, if he gave himself to the Souls, they could easily fix his legs. Probably. There were few things they couldn’t. And I would secondly ask him if a “therapist”, as the term existed in neither mine nor Loki’s vocabulary- was the same a Comforter. The context fit, I supposed. Someone to speak your troubles to, to find relief and answers? But as it were, I was not. So I silently pulled my legs onto the bed, shoes-and-all, and rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling, one arm hanging listlessly off the side, fingertips brushing the cold floor.

“Keeping emotions bottles up isn’t good, you know. I came here because want to help you, if you would let me.” He said when I did not speak up, but no more pushed the subject when I kept quiet. I had already given away enough today, he was not going to get me to do it again.

 _He is a clever liar,_ said Loki after a moment.

The mortal tried a few more time to draw words from me, questioning why I stopped talking once or twice, and when I was beginning to think I was simply being rude for the sake of being rude, Loki made me turn my back to him completely, facing the grey cement wall, and wishing I had not left my pillow on the floor from the night before. He gave up eventually, when a young woman he addressed as Rogue, came to tell him “the meeting was starting in the cafeteria.”

 _Fallon! These spell! Now,_ Loki said as soon as he thought The Professor and the woman had gotten far enough away not to be coming back, shoving memories and spell words at me. _Quickly Fallon!_

 _Okay, okay!_ I rushed to comply, _but I really don’t think we need to be doing this._ Because of the memories he had just shoved at me I knew these spells were meant to mask a sorcerer’s aura, to do the very thing we’d had need of yesterday. With that understanding, it was no question what he had in store for us.

 _But are you not curious? They are having a conference in their_ mess hall, _they have actual rooms for such things, we saw so yesterday. So why in the mess hall unless there was too many people in attendance, and if so many people must attend, then what are they discussing but us?!?_

 _How did you get all that for “meeting in a cafeteria” and how would you even know it’s us?_ The question was more of a knee-jerk reaction, then actual curiosity, I could see perfectly well how he had come up with it, and it made enough since. I was still in no way encouraged to go anywhere. Not again.

 _Come now Fallon, I do not wish be in the dark to our fait if they are speaking of us. If they are not, we will leave._ He said it like it was the plan, not his request, like he full well expected me to do it!

_Of course I do, I told you to do everything I say, we could find something to exploit, something useful._

_No! Now you are just using my promise against me! A leap of faith is not the same as jumping into a shark tank. Promising to listen to you when we are_ in _trouble, does not mean letting you put us there first! No!_ Also a perfectly sound argument… so why did it still sound like I was begging him not to make me?

_Fallon, stop being stubborn. I truly understand that you fear a repeat of yesterday, but even if you have no trust in me, I know you full well trust my magic. We will be protected from who ever saw us yesterday, and I cannot risk us staying ignorant to their plans. Our life grows shorter by the day, do you really wish to spend the rest of it here? Or would you rather stack as many cards as you can in our favor?_

_You have no proof they will be discussing us again,_ I said, in denial.

_Instinct and reasoning are my proof! Fallon we are the only thing they could be talking!_

He was right, I knew. And I could freely admit to it, but it did not change the fact I would rather stay here and safe… but… we were never _really_ safe, were we? “Sitting ducks”, I thought was the proper expression… but what could we gain from watching mortals bicker? Nothing.

 _Advantage._ Loki corrected. _Knowledge, distraction at the very least! Something besides four grey walls and endless questioning._

…

…

…

 _Yes, okay fine._ I gave in. It was his want that go to me, Loki’s need for something to do, his “ I have to, have to, _have to_ know” all consuming desire to be informer that made me change my mind. Not even his logic! Just his want! _Is it safe to go now?? No other spells you would need to cast?_

 _No! Now go. I do not want to miss anything_ , he pushed, giving me no time to protest. Not even a thank you.

Eyes already closed, I wasted no time seeking out the cluster of bodies that were the humans in the cafeteria, and materializing a clone in the farthest corner I could manage.

The cafeteria was not filled as it had been yesterday, but there were defiantly more people than would fill one of their meeting rooms. And everyone’s attention was turned, not The Director standing in the front of the crowd, but a man in the crowd, who gave a loud protest of “you can't be serious! You can't let it out to just run free!” _at_ The Director.

_See. We are the topic of debate. Just as yesterday. They’ve decided to bring their idea before everyone._

I would hardly call this a debate. We arrived just in time to catch all Hel break loose and have the mortals shooting everything from reason why I should or should not be given freedom, what advantage which action could gain them, to the crudest of insults completely unrelated to myself. It was barbaric… then, near to everything the mortals did was.

Loki was loving it, of course. The mortals ware bickering and getting excited, but no fists were being flung. Words were being thrown. People had to think to win. It was his kind of fight. And, he thought, he was somewhat the topic of discussion, the center of attention as it were. How could he not be enjoying it?

“Why don’t we just let Thor decide!?” Shouted the women I remembered was called Aunt May, just as fed up with the chaos as I was. “Heaven knows none of us will agree. The only thing this meeting should have been about was to inform ever one of what was or wasn’t happening. The Host of the damn thing is Thor’s brother, so it should be his decision whether he takes the parasite to Asgard now or later. I know if it had been Peter-” she gestured to where Peter was sitting with other mortals his age “-I wouldn’t want a _single one_ of you involved!”

I had no idea the elderly could be so… frightening.

There was only silence for a minute, people looking off into a distance, presumably imagining someone they’d lost in the Soul’s colonization finding their way here, and how they would feel with other calling the shots. Then, after a minute, once everyone’s mind was made up one way or another, all heads turned to Thor himself, sitting with his back to Loki and I. Shoulders hunched and head resting on his hand.  We could not see his face but we imagined it the be the picture of mourning and sorrow.

“Sounds fair to me.” said the same wore-for-wear looking man* from yesterday. “So what do you want to do Thor?”

“I…” Thor hesitated, sending Loki’s and my nerves spiking in anticipation. “ I do into wish to deliver him to Asgard yet. And he has… attached himself to me. I will house him in my apartment, so there is no repeat of last night’s happenings. So he will feel… _safe…_ and we may all do whatever is needed during the day to make him speak. Then… I will let my father have him, and return to you all.”

 _He wishes not to take us to Asgard._ Loki repeated. _He fears what actions father will take on us-or you- me- whoever…_

“Okay,” Captain Rogers spoke up, “Now, while I’m willing to believe that he’s not an immediate threat to any one person, I was thinking, and you can't tell me that give the chance he won’t find a way to contact his people. If he even got on a phone long enough with one of them, they’d have our location immediately.”

“Maybe we test him for that” Mr. Stark said cheekily, waving something in the Captains face.

 _See, things are starting to go very well Fallon, and if we remain here, we will know what their test is, and there will be no way we could not gain their trust!_ Loki was overwrought with excitement. A rather deceitful way to gain thrust though it was.

“His phone?” the Captain questioned.

“Yeah, it literally does all the same things as any other Smartphone, and even though the techs a bit different- I think it’s actually alien- I managed to make sure it couldn’t make or take calls. All we gotta do is get him alone with it, in a not suspicious way, and see if he tries anything. It’s full-proof because if he does, he can't, and if he doesn’t, then he gains some privileges.” Mr. Stark elaborated, seeming very proud he’d come up with the idea all on his own.

 _See, more people are on our side, we could have things to do during the day. And somewhere more appropriate to sleep! We may never see the inside of that cell again._ Loki exclaimed.

 _I don’t think there are enough people._ I was not going to get my hopes up, and quite frankly I was surprised Loki _was._ When had he become the optimist?

“So how do you propose we get the phone near him Tony?” Professor Xavier asked when no one bothered objecting.

Mr. Stark spun around to face him, smile beaming on his face and said “I was think we have someone take him to the communal showers down on that level- because seriously, he could use a bath-” I had been trying not to think too hard on my lack of hygiene, or my greasy hair and sweat-reeking shirt or how uncomfortable the filth made me feel these last few days “- when he’s in there, I’ll come to talk to whoever’s guarding him about “something urgent” and “accidentally” leave the phone when some alarms just “happen” to go off.”

They were actually deciding on something besides my death or other ways to be rid of me!

 _And all you have to do it take a shower and not touch our phone! Oh! It’s so easy, we may yet avoid death!_ Loki exclaimed

 _Loki all this is doing is stalling… stalling_ that _._

 _Who care! It is better nothing and at least we will be comfortable until_ that!

“So that’s settled.” the Director spoke, the mortals having decided something else while we had been talking. “So when do you want to do it?” he asked in the direction of the table the remaining avengers were sitting at.

“I’ll take him after dinner,” the Captain offered. “That way Thor can take him straight to his apartment if he passes and we don’t have to bother with stressing everyone out with his presence. Tonight at least.”

After all who’s opinions matter gave their agreement, and a few who’s did not gave their final attempts at protest, everyone got up and headed toward the doors, parting until supper.

 _That’s enough._ Loki said, taking us back to your cell.

From there we played the waiting game. Not for long though, because our dinner was brought to us only an hour later, and I ate it quite contently.

It wasn’t until the captain actually came, maybe ten minutes after I had finished eating, that I began to get nervous. I mean, I know there was no real way to mess this up. Just leave the phone be. Wherever they set it, leave it.

I was still nervous.

“C’mon” said the Captain, unlocking the cell door, and beckoning me out. “We’ve got something for you, an apology for- well last night, and this morning. A private shower and some new clothes.”

 _Ooh, new clothe too? Now they really are trying to butter you up._ Loki joked.

_Heh, I'm afraid it might be working too. I would love to get out of this smelly old shirt_

“Wait so he gets a shower a day before everyone else just cause he got beat up?!” Bo's exclaimed. Sitting up on his cot, and coming up to the glass.

“And shot at.” The Captain informed him dismissively, walking on with myself right behind.

I did give a quick “good bye Bo,”  and would have added on “ see you in a little bit” when that sounded like to much of a final goodbye, if I wasn’t afraid my voice would give away that I knew I would not be seeing him again anytime soon. Not if I left the phone alone. And I would. It did not work anyway.

The walk to the showers was quick, we took a different route then the one to the interrogation room, and neither I nor the Captain broke the silence.

 _I hardly see how they intent to get answers from you when they won’t even speak up,_ Loki scoffed as I pulled the curtain closed on the biggest of the shower stalls near the back. When we’d interred the shower room, there’d been a set of travel sized shampoo, condition, and soap left on top of a washcloth and a towel, next to my new change of neatly folded clothes all sitting on the counter by the sinks.

I took everything to the back with me hesitantly, starting to feel reluctant about taking things that did not actually belong to me, leaving the Captain waiting at the front. I set the clothes and towel in the chair outside the shower stall to keep them dry, I undressed, left my dirty clothes in a pile under the chair and turned the water on, as hot as I could without burning myself.

It felt so nice, just standing under the stream of near-boiling water, letting all of my muscles relax after a week of anxiety, discomfort, and worry. A tiny paradise in the pits of Hell, and I was reluctant to move. But I did, eventually, picking up the little shampoo bottle, squeezing it into my hand, and began scrubbing the week’s worth of grime and sweat and oil out of my hair, and if felt so _nice._ Loki could not have agreed more, and it was only after I had rinsed the second round of shampoo from my hair- Loki had insisted I do it twice- that I remembered other things were meant to be happening soon, and wondered what was taking them all so long.

 _Do not bother fretting, you are in no trouble. Stark will show up eventually, and any way it happens, we will not see the phone until after we get out._ Loki chided me, then encouraging me wordlessly to use an ample amount of conditioner, and I picked said bottle up from the little shelf it was sat on. The hot water was beginning to make me dizzy, but I did not cool it down. It still felt too nice.

It was several minutes later, when I was beginning to rub the soap-lathered washcloth along my neck and shoulders that I finally heard Mr. Stark enter. He made it clear who he was with an unnecessarily load “Hey Cap, look at this” which quickly descended into unintelligible whispers.

Barely a minute passed before the alarms went off.

“Shit!” the Captain shouted.

Something that was probably my phone clattered to that ground, and I had to wonder if they didn’t think that would break it before I had a chance to use it?

“Is that-?!” Mr. Stark was interrupted by the Captain.

“It doesn’t matter! Fallon, stay here! We’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere!”

 _They at terrible actors,_ Loki commented, unimpressed.

“Yep, and Jarvis is watching the halls, so seriously stay-whoa!”

I assumed the Captain pulled Mr. Stark out the door at that point.

 _Sound convincing enough to me_. I said.

_And that is another difference between you, and I, I know all lies being told, and you cannot even tell it is a lie when you have been told it will be beforehand. Now finish bathing and get dressed, we have “privileges” to earn._

I continued scrubbing myself down a few more time, before I finally rinsed off for the last time, and shut the water off. Reaching my hand from behind the curtain to grab the thin, old black towel from the chair, and pulling it into the stall with me, I realized something, and was glad I had pulled the towel into the stall with me rather than stepping out. They would have to have some way of see if I was going to use the phone to call my friends, which meant there was probably a security camera somewhere I had failed to notice.

 _Why are you embarrassed to be seen naked!?_ Loki asked, insulted. _You should be grateful for how…_ Well endowed _I am._ He went on suggestively.

 _It’s called_ modesty _, and we are not having this conversation Loki!_ I tried to stop him there, but he was having too much fun making me blush.

 _Why bother with that when we could put every one of those “Men” to shame?_ He would probably be laughing hard enough to lose all his breath if he could, he found he joke that funny. I did not, and I continued to not as I pulled on the fresh boxers, and the faded blue jean, that were just a tad loose. Maybe I was just a tad too small.  Lastly I slipped on a thin, pale-yellow button-down*, and started combing through my hair with my fingers as I stepped out of the stall.

I walked down the short aisle of showers, turned the corner to small area for the sinks, right by and the doors. I saw it there, right on the floor like we suspected and froze. I knew the phone would be there, and I knew it did not work, and I _knew_ it was a trap, but my head was still sent shooting up, looking for the camera I worry… only, I could not find one.

 _Regardless, leave it. Go sit on the bench, put our shoes on._ He guided me bossily. I still did as he said.

 I walked past the phone with an audible sigh that came out as a whine, and laced up my shoes in silence. Then I sat there, staring at the phone. How long were they going to take? After ten good minutes should one of them not come rushing in after “forgetting” the phone, or just plain come in saying “you passed it was a test”? The alarms had stopped barring several minutes ago. Loki was tempted to send a clone out, and find the mortals, just to see what was taking so long, when a happy little tune filled the air.

My focused zeroed back in on the phone, because I knew _exactly_ whose ringtone that was. It was Autumn Chorus’ ringtone. Autumn Chorus’ face on the ID picture! I did not understand! The phone was meant to be useless! No one was meant to call! I wanted to get up and run to it, try to answer ever were is fake! I could tell her I was safe (relatively) and alive quickly enough could I not? I sat up, having been slouching against the wall-

 _No you cannot you dunderhead! It’s just another trap! The mortals are calling! They! Are! Baiting you!_ Loki screamed, halting me before I could stand. Right. Yes. But for them to use Autumn Chorus as their choice of bait? They’d had my phone all week, and it wasn’t as though I’d ever bother with a password, and mortals knew no such thing as privacy! They’d been going through my phone! They had probably seen all the pictures of us together! And then gone through my text messages! I did not know why but the idea of them snooping on my relationship*, and then using it against me made me more angry than anything else they had ever done ever did.

“You people are cruel!” I cried at the ceiling, slamming my back against the wall in frustration. I did not start cry, and thank the Norns for that, but my breathing did come in harsh ragged huffs for a few heart beats before the song stopped, telling me they were done baiting me. Good. Some things just ought to be considered too far, even to the humans.

Then I heard the little beep-beep that indicated I had a new voice mail, and again my thought swam in confusion. The humans wouldn’t have bothered leaving a voice message. Would they? It’s not like I could jeopardize their safety from listening to a voice message was it? Could I? But if I could… and there was one anyway! I rushed to my phone, knees skidding across the floor, despite Loki shouts to “have reason!” That even if the call was real, this was doing us no favors! But I did not care!

Scooping the phone up off the floor, I pressed the power button, and tapped the new-voice-mail notification, calling my voice mail, then tapped the button for speaker phone and waited.

_Put it down Fallon! She isn’t worth it!_

_Yes she is!_

The phone rang twice before the automated women’s voice announced _“you have one new voice message, and six saved messages. New message-”_

And Autumn Chorus panicked voice filled the room.

“Fallen Midnight Snow! Okay I know I’ve called like a hundred times, but it didn’t go straight to voice mail this time! That’s gotta mean something! Right?! Please call me back! Clint says the seekers are still looking, they haven’t found anything, but I swear they are, okay? You’re gonna be fine. I… I love you… Bye.” She ended, a sob coming from her lips, and I sincerely hoped, in vain of course, that Thor had not heard any of that. Not in his Lady Jane’s voice, and not to me.

 _“To delete this message press sev-”_ I pressed seven. I was not going to call back. It would hurt too much. Both her and me. I just had to delete the message first _. “Message marked for deletion-”_ I hung up.

There were heavy footsteps and whisper-shouts outside the door then, but no one came in, and Loki figured they were waiting to see what I would do.

Well I would not call her back.

I defiantly would not do that.

Yes I would! Yes I would! Yes I would! I pressed the power button with my clumsy shaking finger, and-

 _No! You! Will!_ Not! Loki screeched, his consciousness seizing forward and _taking hold of me!_ He _threw_ the phone across the room so fast and so hard, though I did not look up from my lap- to stunned to do so- I heard the sound of breaking wall tile and shattering glass. I paid it no mind though.

Had _Loki_ truly done that?! It hadn’t been me?! I knew Loki could take over our clones, but he had never take control back from _me -_ And what about her! Her? Autumn Chorus! I should have called faster- but Loki took over! That was bad! That was terrible! That was- So was Autumn Chorus’ worry! She might think I was dead! I could-would be dead! The mortals will kill me…I failed- I failed? I… I was dizzy again. My head was feeling light… but something about… my arm… Autumn’s Arm… I…

I passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Loki’s statues being deceased- basically here I’m just gonna explain how TDW fits in with my story, so yeah, So basically the scene in the throne room were Odin is a Dick to Loki didn’t happen, he just had the guards take him straight to the dungeons. Frigga convinced him not to disown him publicly, for her, and then she never dies in when the elves attack. Then everything’s about the same, except Loki didn’t do what every Loki did in the movie to take the throne from Odin, and Frigga was the one that convinced Odin to Let Thor go to Midgaurd. But yeah, they thought Loki was dead. 
> 
> -also these are Tony’s personal files, managed by Jarvis, Shield’s actual files on Loki were probably already updated.  
> *Fallon's new Pale Yellow shirt- Wanderer, the soul in The Host ( and from now on if I mention her in theses note I’m going to assume you know who she is) who Fallon is paralleling in this story, also wears a yellow shirt when she’s with the humans. I didn’t remember that until I was rereading this chapter, and I thought it was hilarious.
> 
> *Autumn Chorus and Fallon “relationship”- I don’t think I make it clear enough where they stood. Mostly because, just like Fallon at that point, the story was mostly focus on Thor, but they were at that stage where it’s like “yeah we’re totally and thing, but we haven’t, like, done anything.” They were just like “Yeah I'm your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriend, we’ll go on a date later.” Then he got kidnapped, but they probably had a few sort-of date-type-moments around the tower before that. Probably no s’mores though. But for them it probably felt like “true love! We’ll be together forever.” Idk. Its was serious, because they like each other, but they never really got a change to bond like that.
> 
> _**please comment!!!** _


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Unbegrudged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> map of Thor's apartment- http://blanca-angelica-l.deviantart.com/art/Thor-s-Appartment-461900458

I was unaccustomed to the level of comfort to which I woke, and this fact alone was enough to jolt me into awareness all the faster. Pushing myself off my side I looked around to find myself in a room I had never seen before.

The walls were pale blue, and the wall in front of me was a wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling window covered by a thin white curtain that allowed a modest amount of sunlight to filter through. There was a long dresser pushed up to the wall near the foot of the bed with a large rectangular mirror pinned to the wall above it. Turning around I found there to be a nightstand with a lamb by the bed, and a digital clock reading 7:23am, and on the wall behind me, in the corner where the that wall and the one opposite the foot of the bed met was the door.

Then it clicked and I remembered. I'd had to pass a test. I wasn't supposed to touch my phone, and I would gain privileges and a room in Thor's apartment, only I had picked up my phone, and... something else, then I'd... I'd gotten _dizzy_ with the mixture of heat and excitement. I’d passed out. The last bit of it was unclear. Jumbled. I decided to think on it later.

Someone must have carried me up to Thor's apartment though, as that was the only place this could be.

 _But how do they consider what you did passing?_ Loki question, baffled considering I had done the one thing I shouldn't, and still, somehow, gotten away with it.

Getting off of the bed, which was high enough that even my long legs barely touched the dark wooden floor when I swing them over, I walked around the bed as quietly as possible and gently tried to turn the handle. It didn't turn, indicating that I was indeed locked in.

 _Maybe they're just that desperate for answers,_ he muses to himself as I walk toward the curtains now. _Though I see little point in it really. There's only one thing you could possibly tell them that could be of use in this fight for their planet that is already lost. They should have gotten a Healer if they wanted to know how to remove a soul._

My hand gripped the curtain, but froze before I could pull it open, _But I do know how... all souls know how..._ I felt guilty for saying this, like it was some grand betrayal telling Loki, and guilty for having not already thought to tell him and I _hated_ that. We knew because it was important to know, in case of emergencies, accidents where the host was dying and one needed to free the soul before they too died... It was easy enough, just... not something the humans should know. Something I didn't want them taking advantage of. Something I feared Loki taking advantage of…

 _I would let no harm come to you if they removed you._ A merciful response in place of the anger I almost expected. He saw no point in anger this morning though. The topic had never before come up, so never on my mind, and so never truly kept from him. He understood too why I would have wanted to keep it to myself had I had the mind to, and did not.

It is a hesitated answer to my fears, however. Not a promise that I would not have to give the information, not a claim that the humans would not abuse the knowledge, just a promise he would do what he could in the alternate universes where we were both getting out of this alive. A senseless gesture seeing as I would need a cryotank for my hibernating body as soon as I was removed anyway, and Loki would have to wake up for sedation quickly or I would be killed as soon as I was removed, we'd need the promise I would be fine, and there was no reason the humans would give it. But at least his words were truth.

Loki didn't say anything like "then you will stay" or "we'll think of something" because it was pointless. He was still astounded that I knew how to remove Souls, and while he wanted free he... actually like me enough not ask me to tell the humans. Not now anyway. He still believed the mortals would kill me, shun him, and have Thor haul him off the Asgard, if he were revealed to be alive. if he were giving freedom, it would be too short lived to matter.

The alarm clock went off then, startling us with its horrible screeching. I rushed over quickly, seeing it was set to go off at 7:30, scrambled frantically for the off button.

We discerned that there was no way the alarm had been randomly set before last night if this wasn't a room commonly used and that that meant Brother would likely be up soon to let us out and to explain all that we already knew. I made the bed quickly, having barely mess it up in my sleep, and seeing as my shoes and clothes had not been removed the night before, and the clothes were still clean, if not a little wrinkled for sleep, I sat at the foot of the bed waiting.

After a minute there were loud stomping foot steps outside the door, coming and going but never stopping near our door. We heard a shower start from somewhere and heard Thor get out a few minutes later. The longer he took, the worse my stomach began to churn with worry. How would he act? Would he be loud? Demanding? Stoic? Would he start asking me questions right away? What if he just left us in this room day and night? That almost sounded worse than the prison cell. My imagination didn't have the chance to go too wild though. Thor finally came, and when he did it was with a gentle knock on the door.

When I didn't answers- I was unsure if he actually wanted me to, or if knocking was simple his habit- he came in. He opened the door slowly, and when he finally saw me he seem surprised. His imagination must have gotten the better of him too, probably my lack of answering had him thinking I was frightened and hiding?

"Oh" he said.

"Good morning...?" I hesitated, and no doubt the awkwardness of this unfortunate situation was showing on my face.

 _Fear not, it shows on his too,_ Loki points out. It made me feel no better.

Determination replaced Thor's hesitation and nodding to himself he said "Right then. You probably have questions. My friend will be here shortly to help answer them. There's a bathroom across the hall if you need it." he turns abruptly then and left without closing the door.

 _Oh, my brother,_ Loki sighs, mood completely soured by Thor’s uneasy presence. _You had none of this thought out did you?_  
\-------------------------------

The apartment itself* was not as small as mine and Loki’s bedroom would suggest, but was definitely not excessively large. On the half of the apartment that our room was there was our room, a bathroom of generous size (with what looked like a jacuzzi for a bath) and what was probably a hall closet at the end of the hall to the left. To the right was the rest of the apartment, the center of which held the kitchen, living room and dining area (which was really just a large round table near the front door, and not a room in and of itself). The living room was on the same side as the floor to ceiling window in our room, and had one of its own. the flooring was the only indicator of where the living room stopped and the dining area and kitchen began, having a beige carpet only in the living room, and the same wooden flooring as in mine and Loki’s room everywhere else.  
In the other side of the living room, across from the kitchen, and parallel to our room, was another bedroom. Thor’s bedroom. It seemed bigger than our, but from our chair at the dining table, and with the door shut we couldn't be sure. 

There was many other details about the apartment that I would come to memorize, but these were the first I noticed sitting across the table from Thor, waiting for his “friends”, likely the avengers, to arrive.

It was a silent and awkward wait. There was no doubt he knew the exact extent my feelings went for him, and this knowledge coupled with the hate he no doubt felt was probably churning his stomach as much as the guilt did mine everyday since I’d first seen how much misery my existence caused him. He must be so-

 _If you would just spit it out already!_ Loki hollered, not to me, but to Thor, despite knowing Thor could not hear him. He saw something in Thor’s mannerisms- the way he held his coffee mug a little too firmly in both hands, the way he shifted ever-so-slightly in his chair every few minutes, the way he huffed when he did so- that told him Thor had something weighing heavy on his mind that he wished to say.

I hadn't really been looking at Thor, but rather just past his head, but now I sat looking directly at him (while he looked into his mug) and waited. For a good few minutes I waited. For him to speak or his friend to show or something. I just waited.

“Look,” he said abruptly in his deep yet melancholy voice, then moved the mug in his hands, sighed, and looked up to me “There are thing that must be set straight.”

I did not respond.

“We are not brothers, you and I. You possess my brother body, and feel the apparently large amount of love he still felt for me in his life, and I do not begrudge you this. I did. In the beginning I did. I hated you for what you’d done.”

That had hurt so much to hear, I’d known it was true but it hurt _so much_ to hear it.

“When you were first brought here,” he continued, “And when I first truly realized how much you confused yourself with Loki, I hated you. Because how could you take a live and think yourself so entitled to all it had? But I am not the blindingly small-minded child of a man I once was, and I have seen. I do not think your people realize what you do, when you take and “make better” other worlds, but I have watched and I think you alone see it’s cruelty, so I do not begrudge you your wrong doings.

“This being said, I do not like you. You have taken my brother, but you have not replace him, and this is where we stand. You see me as more than I will ever be to you, and I see you as … I simply see you. nothing special, no importance to me. We, you and I, are nothing to each other, and we never will be. These word may sound cruel, but I think it a much crueler thing to let you go on with any kind of hope that I would love you as I love Loki.”

A small “Okay,” was all I could muster. I couldn't argue with him, nothing he said was wrong, not from his standpoint. Nothing I said could change his mind, not even telling him here and now that Loki was alive, not even telling him I could give Loki back. He would just push my out of the way, and I knew that would be better for everyone, but I didn’t want to die, not by Thor’s will. Anyone but Thor would’ve-

 _You will let yourself be ended by no one!_ Loki shouted. _If anyone has a claim to your life it is me, and seeing as I like you quite a lot I will thank you to stay as you are._

 _Right, no-yes, I only meant…_ I tried to explain myself with no such luck. He knew what I meant anyway, it was fine not to bother.

There was a knock on the door- finally- and Thor shouted for them to enter, and exactly who I expected to enter entered.

Phil Coulson entered first, followed by the other four Avengers, some carrying grocery bags which they set on the bar that separated the dining area from the kitchen.

As they entered they gave their greetings to Thor, who returned them soberly, as they all gathered at the table, pulling extra chairs as needed. I think they’d been purposefully ignoring me up until then, but as Mr. Stark rather gracelessly plopped down next to me, he acknowledged me.

“And how is this fine morning treating you Fallon?” he smiled, as boisterous as he ever seemed.

 _Ignorant prat,_ Loki hissed, though it was unfair, as Mr. Stark had no way of knowing just exactly how not-fine this more was treating me.

“Better than most I suppose.” I answered.

“Natasha, Bruce, why don’t you two get started on breakfast, and I’ll explain everything to Fallon.” said Phil Coulson.

The Widow got up quickly, seeming glad of the excuse to leave the table, and walked into the kitchen with Dr. Banner, grabbing a grocery bag as she passed them.

“Fallon, I’d just like to start off by apologizing for screaming at you the last time we talked” Phil Coulson started again, drawing every set of eyes at the table to him and myself. “I  
was understandably concerned for my friends, here in the helicarrier, and had to know as quickly as possible exactly why you let yourself be captured-”

“Yes I understand, we don’t have to talk about that anymore.” I cut it. I shouldn’t have been so rude about it, but I really didn’t want to discusses my feeling for Thor again, and rudeness was the only option I could find.

“No we _don’t,”_ The Captain interjected, giving a pointed look at Phil Coulson before he could continue whatever else he might have wanted to say.

“Okay, well.” Phil Coulson, started hesitantly. “We kinda already guessed that you’d figured out what last night was more that just an apology.”

“Yes, I did. Mr. Stark… is not so good an actor,” I tried to joke, to lighten the terrible mood which befell us all.

It worked some what, they smiled, most of them, and Mr. Stark let loose a “hey!” of pretend offence, but when all it did for Thor was deep in his frown, I instantly regretted it.

 _Oh, let him wallow in his mood, we don’t need him right now,_ Loki chides. _Entertain our new friend._

Which basically meant Loki didn't want to focus on Brother’s sorrow, and his own conflictions when they were so glaringly in his face. I decided to take his advice anyway and laughed a little at Mr. Stark with the others. 

“Basically we were testing you,” Phil Coulson continued with a smile. “To see if we could trust you, and while I wouldn’t say you passed with flying colors, here’s the deal. We’ve all come to the agreement that Thor is the authority over you, and he has decided he wants you so stay with him-” _they're going to lie to us._ Loki realized offendedly “- as repayment for all the trouble we’ve caused you.”

“You wanted me here?” Loki makes me ask Brother, so he wouldn’t get suspicious that we completely accepted their lie despite what he had said to us before their arrival. Mostly I thought Loki just wanted the chance to watch Thor ruin a well thought out plan, despite how we needed said plan to actually pan out unobscured.

Thor looked confused and nervous for a moments, then gathering himself he said “it is as I said, I do not like you, but neither do I hate you, and the conditions of the prisons were less than favorable, especially for one who can show himself not to be a threat.”

 _Well done Thor, quick witted, and well enough thought-out._ Loki noted, highly impressed with Thor at the moment.

“There are conditions of course,” Mr. Stark said. “Which sounds lame, but basically you just have to be with someone at all times, and they’re in charge of you. I called you for today, so you get to hang out with me and Bruce. which makes the rule less lame don't you think?”

“Breakfast is ready.” Dr. Banner called at that moment, saving me from having to answer. he and The Widow came in from the kitchen and set bowls filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and oatmeal out on the table, while Thor and The Captain went to retrieve plates and silverware.

Breakfast was actually okay. The humans finished telling me there half truths and explaining the rules, which really was to just stay with whoever, not to go with anyone else, and spend my nights in Thor’s apartment. after that there was chatting. I excluded myself from most of this, despite a few attempts from the other to include me and then I went with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner. to an elevator at the end of the hall to where ever they were taking me for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**please comment!!!** _


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